


Eliot's Safehouse

by smthwallflower



Series: A (Slightly) Dysfunctional Family [3]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:09:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smthwallflower/pseuds/smthwallflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nate found a stowaway in the trunk of his car on his way to Boston, and Parker's been living with him and the crew ever since. </p><p>Parker's ten - set 4 years after "Finding a Home" and "Making a Family". Parker deals with the aftermath of being kidnapped; Eliot's charged with keeping her safe so he takes her to the one place he hasn't been in years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

Chapter 1

Four hours into the drive and Parker had finally cried herself to exhaustion. She was slumped against the passenger door, her eyes closed, sleeping fitfully underneath the coat Eliot had taken off and draped over her. 

They’d left Boston with just enough time to stop by the apartment and grab a bag of her things – Nate wanted her out of town as soon as possible, armed to the teeth with plans and in such a fury that Eliot didn’t bother telling him to be cautious. Caution had been thrown out the window the second someone thought to use Parker as leverage. At this point, Eliot expected that not even death would be able to stop Nate from exacting his revenge. 

Hell was going to be reigning down on the gang that’d kidnapped Parker, and that meant that he was charged with keeping her far away and safe for the next week. 

So with Sophie and Hardison left behind to reign in Nate’s rage, Eliot had left Boston with Parker in tow. She’d begged, whined, argued, pleaded, sobbed, sulked, kicked at the dashboard, and even, surprisingly, shouted at him. But he was a patient, patient man, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was doing the right thing. 

When she realized that she wasn’t going to get him to turn back, she’d hunched over her rabbit, as far away from Eliot as she could get, and cried. 

\- 

It was a few hours past midnight when Eliot pulled over at a seedy highway motel. They’d been driving south for the past 10 hours; Eliot needed to close his eyes and rest for a few hours, and Parker needed to sleep somewhere that wasn’t a car seat. 

Eliot slung her bag over his shoulder before he opened the door, gently catching her body before it could tumble out. “Hey-a darlin’,” he told her softly, pushing the matted hair away from her face, and she stirred. Bleary eyes opened, and before they had a chance to panic, he lifted her from the seat and set her against his chest. 

The first time he’d done it, she’d been half as big as she was now – and nearly half as old. But she curled into him like she always did, her legs wrapping around his waist as her face fell in against his neck. 

Nostalgia crept into his throat as his stomach rolled in rage – the bastards that’d taken her away, however briefly, deserved every bit of suffering Nate would inflict on them. 

The clerk didn’t question him at all – if anything, Parker provided them an excuse to keep things quiet, quick, and impersonal. 

The room was nicer than some of the places Eliot had stayed, and he pulled back the sheets on one of the beds before shifting Parker, cradling her for a moment in the process of setting her down. The stuffed rabbit went into her arms, and Eliot crouched beside her, pulling the blanket up to her chin. 

“Eliot?” she asked sleepily, making sure he hadn’t left her, and he reached out and gave her his hand,

“You’re safe.” 

When he turned off the lights, it took Parker five minutes to crawl out of her bed and into his, curling tightly into the small of his back as he faced the door. 

-

“Why don’t you like guns?” Parker asked, her voice small and soft, as unobtrusive as possible. She was curled under his coat, leaning back against the door instead of the seat, finally resigned. 

Eliot knew why she was asking – he’d managed to fight his way past the bulk of the muscle, but not before Parker had the chance to snatch a gun out of someone’s holster. 

They’d found her sitting against the wall, holding the gun limp with uncertainty, the black weapon looking comically large against her tiny white hands. 

Nate had taken it from her and passed it to Eliot – who ejected the chambered round, pulled out the magazine, and engaged the safety. He’d commented on how much he hated guns as he turned, striking out at a lingering goon with the handle of the gun before throwing it to the side. 

But Parker wasn’t just asking about the gun – resilient as she might be in her own special way, this had shaken her. 

“Parker," he started, but he stopped, trying to figure out how to phrase it so she could understand. "People who wave guns around - usually they're trying to make up for something. A weak guy, he needs a gun; a strong guy knows he doesn't need it. Guns show you the best and worst parts of you... I don't like guns because nothing that can take someone's life away with the pull of a trigger is okay. They change you, and most people? They can't handle that change. No one comes out of that better." 

Silence filled the cab of the truck, Parker’s eyes dark and thoughtful. Eventually she told him: “I didn’t kill anyone.” 

Eliot’s heart ached for her because for her, it’d been an option. 

-

It'd been 25 hours, and they were in Texas, and Eliot realized where he’d been driving to all along. He turned off the highway, passing a sign that pointed the way to a small town. Turning down the country music, he rolled up his window, glancing over at Parker. Her hair was ruffled from the last time she dozed off against the window, and he reminded himself it would be insensitive to goad her for it. 

“I wanna go home now,” she told him, her fingers playing with the sleeves of his coat, which pooled in her lap. 

She’d been asking every now and then, slipping it into conversation, or springing it on him out of the blue. Like he might accidentally say yes if she just caught him off guard. “Not yet,” he said as he shook his head. 

Building’s appeared in the distance, and Parker shifted restlessly, her shoulder twitching. Parker didn’t do sitting still very well – over the years Eliot had tried to teach her how to mediate a couple times, but that only ever lasted minutes. 

“I want to see Nate,” she told him, an octave into whining, desperate and jittery. Hardison had given him a flip phone, but he wasn’t going to risk using it until Hardison called him first. 

Eliot shook his head again, patient. “In a week or so, darlin’. He’s got something to take care of, and it’s nothing you should be around for.” 

“But I’m fine,” she instead, incredulous in only the way a child could be; frustrated that no one understood the world to be the simple thing they’d come to know it as. “I didn’t even get hurt, other than my arm. I wasn’t scared of anyone – why do I have to leave?” 

Eliot didn’t answer her, slowing as he entered the town limits, the buildings quickly surrounding them. He pulled off the main street, passing the central district in seconds. 

“I want to go back,” Parker started again, desperation lacing her voice as she pushed back against the seat, “I want to go back home and be with Nate and Sophie and Hardison. I don’t want to be here, I want to be home. Take me home,” she pleaded, and Eliot pulled off on a side road, dust kicking up behind the truck.

“Enough, Parker,” he said shortly, and she fell silent, taken aback by his tone. They were nearly there though, and he didn’t want Parker to work herself up into a frenzy. 

The wooden posts that lined the dirt road gradually gave way to two parallel lines of unkept bushes, and he slowed as they came up the drive, a house appearing from behind a gathering of trees. 

“Why not?” she asked, her voice breaking with dejected acceptance. 

Eliot slowed to a stop, throwing the truck into park and taking his seat belt off before turning to look at her. “Because our number one priority is keepin’ you safe. And that means we’re not going home until Nate calls me and says I can bring you back. Hey,” he murmured, brushing a tear off her cheek with his thumb.

Parker pulled away from him with a jerk, staring at the dashboard before unbuckling her own seat belt and scrambling across the partition, setting herself in his lap and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, clinging to him. He could imagine what she was going through, the stress and trauma of the kidnapping, of being taken away from everything familiar without a second to adjust. The incident had shaken her more than she wanted to show, and he admired her resolve to stay brave. 

“We’re never going to let that happen again,” he promised in a whisper, and Parker nodded – she had been scared, anyone would’ve been scared. But the real reason they were all the way out here wasn’t to keep Parker safe – she was already safe. It was to keep Parker away from Nate, from seeing his monstrous revenge, and to keep her far away from seeing how hard they could really come down on those that crossed them. 

After a minute or so, Parker pulled away, and the small space suddenly felt too crowded for both of them to be occupying. She wasn’t the kid she’d been when she first starting living with them – four years had made her tall and lanky, and unsettlingly graceful. “Where are we?” Parker asked, suddenly curious about their surroundings, only the faintest traces of tears on her cheeks.

“Little place outside of Oklahoma – my sister lives here, with her kids. We’re gonna pretend that all that stuff back in Boston didn’t happen. And you can’t tell them what Nate and us really do. We’re gonna say that Nate runs a small investment firm, Sophie’s his wife, I’m security, Hardison’s IT.” 

Parker nodded – it was the default story, one they used all the time, and she filled in: “Nate and Sophie are my Mum and Dad.”

“That’s right. Good,” he smiled; at least that part was more or less true. Opening the car door and helping her slide out. “Be nice to them. They’re good people, and they’re family.” 

Parker nodded, solemnly this time, and he grabbed her bag before shutting the door. He didn’t have any baggage himself. “Com’on,” he told her, putting a hand on her shoulder and taking her up to the front door. 

 

Chapter 2 

A beautiful lady opens the door, and she stares at Eliot for a couple of seconds before she starts crying. The screen door flies open and she throws herself at Eliot, arms held wide – Parker has a split second to get out from between them. She darts away from Eliot and jumps over the porch railing, landing softly on the ground, where she can get to the truck quickly. When she looks back though, Eliot’s hugging the lady back, holding her tightly and squeezing. His eyes are closed and Parker takes a step closer, figuring that if Eliot’s hugging this lady, she can’t be all that bad. 

Finally, after what seems like ages, Eliot pulls away, and the lady punches him in the chest. Parker flinches, and ducks behind the porch so that she’s hidden. 

“Ely, you bastard,” the woman says, and Parker’s never heard anyone call Eliot ‘Ely’ before. 

There’s a pause, and Parker tenses, waiting, but all Eliot says is, “I’m sorry.” 

Movement, and then she hears Eliot say: "Hold on - Parker?" 

Parker wants to stand up and answer, but her body keeps her still, refusing to move. 

There's movement above her and she looks up to see Eliot crouching and looking down at her, his hand on one of the posts that keep the railing up. "This is my sister," he tells her, and she stands up and turns, looking over at the lady, whose arms are wrapped around herself. "Come up here and say hi." 

Slowly, Parker reaches up, grabbing the posts and pulling herself up, until she can pull herself over. Eliot helps her down to the ground, and she stays beside him, her back pressing up against his leg. 

"Kay, this is Parker. Parker, this is my sister Kay," Eliot says, and Parker watches the lady carefully. There's movement behind her and Parker's eye immediately moves to it; she sees the shadow of someone about her size in the hallway, before they disappear.

"Hi-ya Parker," Kay says softly, and she looks curious, and she's stopped crying. 

Eliot nudges Parker so she says, "Hi," back. 

"Parker's my boss' daughter," Eliot tells her, and Parker wishes that they were back home instead of here. "Things got a little heated in Boston, so he asked me to take her somewhere safe for a little while." 

Kay looks at Eliot for a few seconds, and Parker starts thinking that maybe they can stay somewhere else when she opens the screen door and holds it for them. "Luck you, you came just in time for dinner," she says, and when Eliot moves, Parker moves with him. 

Eliot unlaces his boots and puts them against the wall, where there's a couple of different shoes. Parker pushes her shoes off her feet and puts them beside Eliot's, staying by the wall - the hallway is short, and there are rooms that come off it, and Parker feels uneasy not knowing where things are. 

"Matthew and John are staying with Ma and Pa this month - workin' on the ranch, makin' some money. John's nearly 18, he's near as big as Pa," she tells them, waiting until they're standing before moving off to the kitchen. 

"It's okay," Eliot says quietly to her, and she trails behind them, peering into the rooms as they pass, listening to how Matthew is almost 16, and how he met a girl in the city, and she's a fine, classy girl. And how they'll be disappointed to learn that they missed their Uncle Eliot, but that just means he has to come back again soon.

The first room has one small television, surrounded by couches, and an entrance into what Parker thinks is the kitchen - the second is a small room with a desk, some papers, and an old computer, with bookshelves along the wall and a bench by a great big window. The third is a bunch of stairs, which immediately turn up to the left. 

The hall goes into the kitchen, and there's pictures on the fridge and things framed on the wall, and the stove looks like it's older than the one Nate has, and there're things all over the countertops - it's not messy, but there seems to be a lot more stuff than the kitchen back home. There were sliding doors along the back, and in the middle of the room, a great big table with all sorts of chairs. 

There was a boy about Parker's size sitting in one of them, staring at his plate with his hands folded on his lap. His hair is short and when he looks over at them, she thinks that he looks a little weird until she realizes that he reminds him of Eliot. 

"Carl," Kay says, and her voice is soft. "Come meet your Uncle Eliot."

Carl doesn't look like he wants to, but he pushes his chair back and comes over anyway, and when he looks at Parker, he looks curious. "Hi Uncle Eliot," he says, but he doesn't really look at Eliot. 

"Hey there, Carl," Eliot says softly, and Parker watches them - Carl's looking at Eliot now, and Eliot's looking at Carl, and Parker knows that there's something happening, but she doesn't understand what it is. Kay has that look on her face too, and Parker tries to remember all those things Sophie said about people and feelings, but none of that sounds like this. 

"I'm hungry, Ma," Carl says finally, and Kay doesn't seem happy, and she opens her mouth, but before she can say something Eliot says, 

"We're pretty hungry ourselves," and the strange looks have stopped, and Parker's hungry too. 

Kay puts a hand on Carl's shoulder and squeezes, and they move to the table, so Parker follows. Kay gets two more plates out and sets them down on the table with glasses, and Parker sits beside Eliot and Carl. 

"Ready?" Kay asks, reaching across the table - Eliot gives her his hand after a second, and Carl takes her other one. Eliot takes Parker's hand, and Parker stares at them, wondering what's happening. "Carl," Kay says, and she uses that voice that Sophie has, that you just have to listen to, and Carl hesitates before holding his hand out to Parker. Parker looks at it for a second before deciding that she's okay taking it, and then they're all holding hands. "Ely?" Kay asks, and Parker looks at Eliot, who shakes his head. They look at each other, and after a moment, Kay sighs. "Then I'll do the blessin'," she says, and Parker's confused as they bend their heads down. 

"Dear God," Kay starts, and Parker wonders why she's talking to God. “Thank you for this bread, an’ this chicken, an’ for helpin’ our little Coal recover from his sickness. Thank you for watchin’ out for us, and answerin’ our prayers. Thank you for bringin’ back our Ely.” Parker looks up at Eliot, but his eyes are down. 

They were praying – you did that in church. Nate had told her a little bit about God, but not much, but she didn’t know that people talked to him like this. “Amen,” Kay says, and everyone says ‘Amen’ after her except Parker. 

There' s a pause, and then Carl lets go of Parker’s hand and she lets go of Eliot's. "You changed your hair," Kay says as she pulls a bowl of mashed potatoes towards her, and Eliot takes the shredded chicken and starts putting some on Parker's plate, and then on his. 

"Got tired of the straight cut," Eliot says; it feels like there's more, but he doesn't say anything else. 

Carl has a bowl of carrots and broccoli, and they all switch what they’re holding - Eliot puts the carrots and broccoli on Parker's plate, and Parker wonders if it'll be as good as Eliot's. "I think it looks good," Kay tells him. There's silence as they all switch again, and then Kay asks, "How're you likin' Boston then?" 

Parker waits until they all start eating before she takes her first bite, and she reminds herself of the story in case anyone asks her. But Kay and Eliot talk to each other; the first time Kay asks Parker a question, she looks to Eliot, who answers for her - neither her nor Carl talk, except at the end when Carl asks if he can be excused from the table. 

Kay says he can go, so he puts his plate in the sink and disappears through the hallway, and Kay looks at Parker and asks if she's finished. The plate has nothing left on it and she nods, looking at Eliot. 

"I'll take it," Eliot says, and she waits for him to tell her what to do, because she doesn't know. "Why don't you go see if Carl wants to play?" he asks, and that means that he wants to talk to Kay alone, so Parker shrugs and pushes her chair away to leave. "Parker," he says when she turns around, and she turns back - he moves his eyes to Kay, and she thinks for a moment before understanding what he wants. 

"Thanks," she says, and she turns around to leave again, and Eliot stops her with another,

“Parker.” 

Parker turns, frowning at him, “What?” 

“Don’t touch anything,” he tells her, and she knows that, and she knows that he’s really saying that she’s not allowed to take anything, or use the computer, and she sighs impatiently. 

“Fine,” she tells him, frustrated that he’s stopped her plans before she could do anything about them. 

Carl's not in either of the other rooms, so with a lingering look at the computer she goes upstairs - one door is open, and she looks into it. There's a cool breeze coming in from the window, and when she looks out the window, she sees Carl sitting on the slated roof, and she silently joins him. She lays back to look up at the stars with him, but they don't talk. 

Chapter 3

Eliot ferried the empty plates and cups to the sink, where Kay stood, washing the dishes. The leftover food was wrapped and put in the fridge, the placemats taken to the porch and shaken out; the routine of it all was distantly familiar. After the table had been tidied, Eliot grabbed a dish towel from the handle of the stove and stood beside Kay, drying the dishes she placed on the rack. 

"We gonna talk 'bout this?" she asked him, and he didn't answer; he was trying to remember the last time he'd dried dishes beside another person. "They'll dry themselves," Kay told him after a moment, but Eliot put the plate he'd finished on the stack he was making, picking up another. 

The glass that Kay was washing clattered against the sink, and he took a steady breath. "Damn-it Ely, talk to me," Kay snapped after the glass had stilled, her voice low and strained. 

"There're four of us," Eliot said, and he could tell she wasn't expecting it - never had he talked about what it was he did. No comments, no leads, nothing. Not only was he here, it was more than he'd ever told her. "We all work together - a team. Parker's a good kid; one of our guys showed up with her a couple years back." 

He'd sunk into the rhythm of the motions: picking up, wiping around, getting the middle, putting it down, picking up the next. 

"Years?" she asked, and he nodded, knowing what she was thinking. He'd created a family of his own years ago, before Parker even, so why had it taken so long for him to get around to coming back to his own? 

"It was too dangerous before," Eliot told her, and it was partially true. The information he was giving her could get her killed. Visiting her like this could get her killed. 

The water turned off but she stayed where she was; they didn't look at one another. "An' now?" 

"Still dangerous," he told her, honestly. There would always be a risk. There'd always be people who wanted him dead and hurting. "But now I have a team to keep the worst from happening." 

Kay looked out the window and sighed. The rhythm broke. Suddenly uncertain, Eliot glanced at her. "We can go," he told her softly; and there'd be no hard feelings if she did. 

"Stupid," she said instead, rolling her eyes and bumping up against him. He smiled, almost laughing - he'd missed her, and he'd missed his nephews. 

Something fell in front of the window and Eliot tensed - but no one followed them here, he'd been using cash, and there was no way they'd been tracked from Boston. That suspicion passed in a second, and he realized it'd been the size of a child just as they heard Carl shouting from outside: 

"Momma!" Kay pushed herself away from the counter; had Carl somehow fallen? 

Kay was out the back door and Eliot followed right after her - Parker was standing on the grass just outside of the square of light from the kitchen, her face a canvas of vague outlines in the fading light. He could make out Carl, on top of the roof. 

"Carl, what did I tell you about climbing on that roof?" Kay demanded, and Carl turned and scrambled back up the roof to the open window. "I'm coming up there!" she shouted, turning and leaving Eliot and Parker. 

Eliot folded his arms and looked over at Parker, who took a step back into the shadows. "I didn't do anything wrong," she said instantly, and he shook his head, 

"Then what do you sound so guilty about?" he asked, and she frowned, caught in the lie. "Come over here - you know you're not supposed to go climbing on anything without a harness," he told her. 

"But it's just a roof," she told him, with an undertone of 'obviously'. 

"You're not supposed to be climbing on roofs." 

Her eyes widened slightly, and he wondered if Nate had ever bothered to tell her that. “Why not? It wouldn’t even hurt if I fell off this one.” 

"It's a roof Parker," he told her, but she didn't seem to understand why that was inherently the problem. Parker's sense of self-preservation wasn't quite in line with most everyone else's and it was one of the things that always managed to frustrated him. There'd be no talking her out of it. "If I say don't do it, are you going to do it?" he asked, knowing they'd be talking this one in circles for hours otherwise. 

“No,” she muttered, begrudgingly. 

“Then don’t, do it,” he told her, and she huffed, kicked at the dirt and turned around. “Parker,” he called out as she headed to the house, and she stopped to turn toward him, 

“I won’t do it,” she told him impatiently, and he knew she thought he was being unreasonable, but she wasn’t going to understand why that wasn’t true. 

But a confirmation was all he needed, and he said, “Thank you,” to which she huffed again. “Let’s go see where we’re sleeping, then." 

 

Chapter 4 

Eliot's on the floor on a camping mat, and Parker has the single bed above him. She's happy he didn’t want to go sleep on the couch – it isn't that she's scared that the people who’d taken her will come back, she just feels safer with Eliot there. 

“Kay is your sister?” Parker asks, and Eliot nods, his back against the floor, his hands behind his head, 

“Yeah.” 

“Is she older or younger?” Parker asks, and Eliot answers, 

“Older – two years. Though you’d think it was more than that, the way she acts sometimes.” 

Parker wants to ask why she didn’t know that Eliot had a family, but she doesn’t know much about Nate’s family, other than Maggie and Nate’s Dad, and that he had a son, before her, and that Hardison grew up with his Nana, who was just a foster mom he really loved and who Parker really liked too, and Sophie… Parker’d seen a letter, once, when she first started living with Nate. 

But Eliot… there’d never been anything. “I never talked about ‘em,” Eliot tells her, and Parker knows she didn’t say anything out loud that time. “I wasn’t always a good guy,” he tells her, and it doesn’t really sound like he’s talking to her anymore, but she listens anyways, “And I didn’t want to hurt them more than I already had.” 

“You hurt them?” Parker asks, her voice a whisper. Not even daring to think... 

“I did. That's why I couldn't come back for a long time." 

"But they're still alive," Parker says, and she thinks that if Nicky was still alive, she'd want to keep him safe too. Even if it meant not seeing him ever, knowing he was alive would be enough. But she has Nate, even if he doesn't want her to be around. But then again, Nate's keeping her safe right now, and she hates it.

“You all right darlin’?” Eliot asks softly, and Parker shakes her head even though he can’t see it. 

She misses Nate, and she misses Sophie, and she misses Hardison, and no matter how tightly she squeezes Bunny, she can’t stop missing them. She even misses Eliot a little bit – the Eliot from the city, who cooks food, and laughs with Hardison, and who she’s never heard called Ely before. 

“Parker?” he asks again, and she feels like if she doesn’t say anything, then maybe he’ll leave her alone. But she doesn’t want to be alone, she wants to have her family. 

“I want to talk to Nate,” she tells him softly, pleading with him, hoping he doesn’t get mad, because it’s different than when she was asking to go see Nate, this time she just wants to hear his voice, but maybe he doesn’t care how different they are. 

It takes him a second to respond, and he sounds sorry when he says, “I know sweetheart, but you can’t. Maybe in a couple days Hardison will give me a call, but until then, we can’t risk them finding us.” 

“But I want to,” she says, and she feels close to crying. Nate had been happy to see her when she found them, but she hadn’t even gotten to spend any time with him before they left. Hardison had hugged her tightly and kissed her cheek, and Sophie had tried to pick her up and almost fallen over. But they’d all been doing other things, being angry and upset at the people who took her… and now she was here. “I miss them,” she tells Eliot quietly, talking into Bunny’s head. She does cry then, trying to muffle the sounds against Bunny. 

At first, she isn’t sure if Eliot hears her – but then he’s moving around the room, and she squeezes her eyes shut as the bedside lamp comes on. They're in Carl’s room, and Eliot's by the bookshelf, looking at all the different books before he pulls one out. 

“Scootch over,” he tells her, and she presses herself to one side of the bed as he sits on the other, leaning back against the headboard. She curls up under his arm, because the bed is small, and he shows her the book he’s gotten – 

“But it’s a picture book,” she says to him, and she’s not a baby anymore, and she doesn’t like reading in school, and she stopped reading pictures books years and years ago. 

“This was my favorite one as a kid,” Eliot says, and she looks at the picture of a moon and looks up at him. “No, give it a chance. Here, read it with me. You go first.” 

“In the great green room,” she starts slowly, finding the pictures a little more interesting than she wants to let him know, “There was a telephone.” 

Eliot reads the next sentence, and they traded off, and by the end of it she was maybe smiling. 

“Goodnight noises, everywhere,” Eliot finishes, and Parker thinks that this feels a little more like home, and it makes her feel better. He puts the book down on the bedside table and turns off the light, and Parker usually sleeps in her own room, but sometimes she has bad dreams and she sleeps with Nate and Sophie, and she feels safe, and she doesn’t want Eliot to leave. “We’d always say goodnight to all the people we couldn’t, when I was a kid. You want to say goodnight to Nate, and Sophie, and Hardison?” he asks, and she thinks it sounds silly, but maybe Eliot wants to say good night to them too? And she sort of wants to. 

“Goodnight Nate,” she says, testing it out, and Eliot pulls the blanket up so it’s completely covering her. 

“Goodnight Hardison,” Eliot says, and Parker repeats it in her head. 

“Goodnight Sophie,” she finishes, and Eliot kisses the top of her head and whispers, 

“Goodnight Parker. And Bunny,” and Parker says, 

“Goodnight Eliot,” with her eyes closed. 

 

Chapter 5

Parker fell asleep pretty quick after that, and Eliot stayed with her for a while, closing his eyes and dozing. It’d been a gamble, coming out here, but it seemed like Kay was willing to let them stay, at least for a couple days. It would be interesting to see Parker getting on with Carl; she didn’t seem to have what you would call friends at school, but Eliot hoped that they would figure out a way to co-exist. 

When the darkness began to turn to grey, Eliot dislodged himself from Parker. He adjusted the pillow under her head and made sure she was covered properly with the blanket. The memory of finding her missing was still fresh in his mind, and he kept the door open a little as he left the room. 

Everything was suspended in a light mist, the air crisp and refreshed from the night. It would turn heavy and warm after a few hours baking in the sun, but this was a taste of air that he savoured in the memory of. 

The dog barked twice in greeting as he approached, and he gave it a couple pats on the head before checking out the perimeter. There were two barns – one with animals, and one for storage. There was a chicken coop off in the corner, by the wooden fencing that turned toward a shed, and continued past it into the darkness. There was a small greenhouse and a little garden filled with fruits and vegetables.

Around front his car was still there, the crickets chirping; a light in the house came on, and Eliot looked up to the window where he’d left Parker – it wasn’t that light, and he relaxed some. Probably his sister then, coming down to check out who was roaming about. 

Heading back in, he saw her leaning against the stove. 

“Old habits?” she asked, her arms folded, the disapproving look on her face and the cool air wafting in behind him reminding him of their Ma, ready to scold him for staying out too late. 

But just as he knew he was guilty back then, he knew he was justified now. “Can never be too careful,” he told her, keeping his voice down to prevent waking anyone else. 

“An’ here I was makin’ sure I didn’t need my shotgun,” she smiled at him; sleep still clung to her face, and her cheeks were just starting to get some color back in them. 

“Not while I’m around,” he reassured, and the corner of her eyebrow crinkled, surprised – she’d been joking but he hadn’t, and he wasn’t about to take it back. 

Then suddenly she was hugging him, her body seeming entirely too small for the presence she carried, fitting into his arms like she was barely there. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened – they’d been talking, and now she was sobbing (she had a very distinctive sob), and he wasn’t sure how one had led to the other. 

“Oh Ely,” she muttered, squeezing his neck so tight he had to suppress the instinct to retaliate. Instead he let her hold him, giving it back to her firmly but gently. When she pulled away, she punched him in the chest, and he blinked. “Don’t ever let it be that long again,” she chided, shaking out her hand. He couldn’t make promises, but he nodded anyway – he’d try. And it helped that it’d be a little hard to top off the last absence. 

They stayed like that a minute; she’d grown, just like he had, over the past years. Maybe she hadn’t been through any covert wars, or liberated any countries, or taken any lives, but they weren’t at the same places they’d been twenty years ago. Their journies had been vastly different, but looking at her now, Eliot would be hard pressed to say they hadn’t been equally transformative. 

“You done good,” he told her softly, and she tilted her head and smiled, an arm crossing across her chest and over her heart – a gesture of their Ma’s, and Eliot felt compelled to reach out and hug her once more. “You done real good.” 

This time she felt alive in his arms, and when she pushed him away, her contemplation had turned to ease. “You don’t have to tell me what happened Ely, these past years, I just need to know that you’ve got your head on right now.” 

“I got my head on right.” 

 

Chapter 6

“That’s Coal,” Carl says, and he’s standing beside the little step ladder that Parker’s on, her hands curled around the bars that let her look through the door to the stall. There’s a big tan horse, its neck curled down to a smaller horse – a baby horse, a foal, Carl had called him. 

“He’s so small,” Parker says, and he’s got a bald spot on his stomach, and Carl says, 

“He was sick before, but the doctor fixed him up a couple’a days ago. He’s gonna to be my horse.” 

“Can you ride him?” Parker asks, and the big horse looks at her, and she looks back at it. 

The door bounces a little, and Parker looks down – Carl’s leaning against it, and he’s staring out at the rest of the barn, but he doesn’t look like he’s seeing anything. “Not ‘till he’s gets bigger. But I know how to ride.”

Parker looks back at the horses, wondering if they can climb over the door and touch them – but before she can ask, someone comes into the barn, and Carl pushes himself off the door. 

“Carl,” the man says with a nod, and he has big hands, and his pants and shirt are dirty. “How you doin’, son?” 

“’M fine, thanks, Mister Rogers,” Carl responds, and Parker thinks that he looks a little nervous. She turns on top of the ladder; the door to the left is open, and she can run up the ladder that leads up to the hay up above them – there’s a window there, and she’s pretty sure she’ll be able to get down that way. 

Rogers looks at her, but his gaze doesn’t linger. “Lots to do t’day – why don’t you and yer little friend go on out an’ play outside?” 

“Yes, Mister Rogers,” Carl says, and Parker jumps off the ladder, because she’d much rather stay with Carl than with Rogers. They leave the barn and one of the cats follow them – Carl ignores it and sits by a giant oak tree, and Parker remembers the alley cats she played with when she was younger. 

But the cat seems more interested in rubbing up along her legs than she does in playing, and after a few minutes Parker gives up. 

“So what’re you doin’ out here with my Uncle Eliot?” Carl asks, and Parker sits down on the dirt across from him, her legs stretched out. 

“Some bad guys want to hurt my Dad,” she tells him, drawing a pattern in the dirt with her fingers, “So he made me leave with Eliot for a little while. ‘Cause he thinks it’s not safe for me or something at home.” She sighs; she really didn’t know what Nate was so worried about. She’d been kidnapped, but she was just fine, wasn’t she? 

When she looks up, Carl looks a little alarmed, and she’s not sure what she said that caused it. “It’s not like it’s dangerous or anything,” she tells him, and she knows that he won’t be able to tell she’s lying, because she’s not. “Nate just worries.” 

“Nate?” Carl asks, and Parker nods, 

“Nate’s my Dad.” 

Again, it seems to confuse Carl a little, and Parker doesn’t really get why. Until he asks, “Why do you call him Nate, if he’s your Dad?” 

Carl wasn’t the first person to ask her that question, but the answer was still the same: “Because that’s his name.” 

“I call my Ma, Ma,” Carl shares, and Parker shrugs, 

“Okay.” 

Carl watches her for another couple seconds before leaning back against the tree and reaching out to pet the cat who’d given up on Parker’s attentions and curled up next to him. “I’ve never met Uncle Eliot until last night,” he told her after a moment of silence, and that made her look up at him. “I mean, I guess I did, but I was a baby. John and Matthew were little the last time they saw him, but I’ve only ever heard of him.” 

And somehow, Parker understands that to mean that Eliot hadn’t seen them for years. And Carl’s at least ten, like her. “I didn’t know about you,” she offers, and after she says it, she realizes that she hopes it makes him feel better. 

“Yeah, whatever,” he shrugs, jerking his hand away from the cat, and Parker watches him, wondering what he’s thinking. It was almost like he was upset, but she didn’t know why. There were lots of people she didn’t know – why did it matter so much to Carl if he’d met Eliot before or not? 

“You want to climb this tree?” she asks, because that always makes her feel better, and even if she doesn’t really get why Carl’s upset, she can tell that he is. 

Carl looks up at the tree he’s leaning against, tilting his head up until he can see the branches. “John and Matthew can’t even climb this tree,” he tells her, and Parker’s never seen John or Matthew climb trees, so it doesn’t mean much to her. 

“Do you want to climb it?” she asks again, because maybe he didn’t get it. 

Carl shakes his head, standing up, “We can’t.” 

“Why not?” Parker asks, standing up as well. 

“It’s too hard,” Carl says slowly, and Parker frowns, looking up at the tree. 

“No it’s not,” she says, and she puts her hand on the knot that bumps out of the trunk, and then jumps up to hook her fingers in a gap in the bark – it’s not very strong, but it’s strong enough to hold her, and she balances the pressure between the two as she gets her feet under her, leveraging herself up and hooking her fingers in another gap higher up. It takes a few seconds to get to the first branch, but after that she’s swinging between them, until she’s sitting in the cradle that the branches form in the center of the tree. When she looks down, Carl’s staring up at her, frowning. “See. Come on,” she tells him, and his head tilts to the side. 

“How’d you do that?” 

Parker pushes herself off her little seat, and comes down to one of the lower branches. “Just climb,” she tells him, and he hesitates, and then comes closer. He doesn’t know how to pull himself up between the gap in the bark and the knot though, and Parker slides down the tree until she can jump off it. 

“I can’t do it,” Carl says, and Parker looks back behind them, at the barn, and wonders if there’s something that will help in there. 

“We just need rope, or something,” she tells him, heading to the barn, and when he grabs her arm, she stops and turns around. “What?” 

“Mister Rogers told us to stay outta there.” 

“So?” Parker says – they’re not going to be bothering him, they were just looking for some rope. 

Carl shook his head, “So, we shouldn’t go in there!” 

“Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t see us,” Parker says, wondering if Carl just doesn’t want to get caught. Shouldn’t wasn’t the same as couldn’t, but maybe Carl was mixing them up. 

“How?” Carl asks, and Parker grins, 

“Just do what I do – it’ll be fun.” 

 

Chapter 7 

Eliot was a little more than surprised when dinner time came around and Parker came through the back door with Carl, both of them breathless, grinning, and absolutely filthy. 

“Heavens,” Kay said in shock before she took them both by the arms and marched them upstairs, muttering under her breath about hooligans and respecting the clothing on your back. Parker shot a panicked glance back at him as she was pulled out of the kitchen, but Eliot smiled and laughed, and that seemed to let Parker know that things were going to be okay. 

After five minutes of sitting at the table alone, Eliot got up to go check what was taking so long. 

The door to the bathroom was open, and Eliot could hear the water running in the sink. 

“Now?” he heard Parker ask, and after a second, he heard Kay respond,

“No. There’s still sap on that, look at that. Do ‘em again.” 

“But I’ve done them five times,” Parker whined, and Eliot leaned against the doorframe in time to see Kay’s eyebrow raise.

“An’ you’ll do it five more times, or ten, or twenty, until I’m happy with it.” 

Carl wasn’t fairing any better, and Kay took one look at his hands before shooting him an unimpressed look. “But Ma,” Carl whined, and Kay shook her head. 

“Sap?” Eliot asked, and Parker turned around, her eyes lighting up. 

“Eliot!” she said, pulling away from the sink and holding her wet hands up for him to see. “I washed them and they’re fine, right?” 

She was hoping he was going to be her knight in shining armor, and while he was usually more than happy to fill in that role – there was an undeniable amount of sap still stuck between her fingers. “Sorry darlin’,” he said, turning her around and giving her a gently push back to the sink, “Even I see the sap. Try some hotter water.” 

“What on Earth were you two doin’?!” Kay demanded, and Carl shot Parker and shook his head none too subtly. Parker scrunched up her nose, confused, and Carl said, 

“Just horsin’ around Ma, honest.” 

“Horsin’ up and down them trees, more like,” Kay frowned, and Eliot wasn’t surprised in the least. 

Thankfully, Carl had gotten the last of the gunk off, and he wiped his hands dry. “There, clean,” he said, and Kay took his shoulder and steered him out of the bathroom, keen on getting him to change. 

Eliot came in and sat down on the seat, watching Parker’s determined face as she tried picking off the sticky. “You two get up to anything I should know about?” he asked quietly; Parker lived by a different set of rules that most people did, and it wasn’t just because she functionally lived with four conmen. 

“I helped him get up the tree,” she told him, not focusing on him – it was on purpose, and it told him that she was hiding something. 

He folded his arms against the counter top, resting his chin on his forearm. “And what else?” he asked, because it’d be worse if it came out later and he didn’t know about it. Manners weren’t intuitive to Parker, but they were staying under someone else’s roof, taking advantage of their hospitality. Some forewarning would be appreciated. He could just imagine the things she’d be able to get up to around here. 

“I don’t know,” Parker said, and Eliot watched her. “We chased some chickens around. And we went into the barn after Rogers told us to play outside, but he didn’t see us go in or anything. And we were only getting some rope so I could help Carl get up the tree. That was alright, wasn’t it?” she asked, her hands sitting still and looking over at him. 

They’d all struggled with aligning their moral compass, but Parker was trying to do it while being a ten-year-old with a troubled childhood. It was hard not to take pity on her. “Yeah, that was alright,” he told her softly, “But you shouldn’t be sneaking into places you aren’t supposed to be in, you know that.” 

“But Rogers said that we should leave, not that we had to leave.” 

“I think he was just being polite about it, Parker,” Eliot told her, standing up and turning off the tap. There was a still a little residue, but he took some paper towel and rubbed it off her hands that way. Parker frowned, thinking about it. Hands finally clean, he steered her out of the bathroom. “Go get changed; dinner’s on the table and it’s getting cold.” 

It didn’t take long for her to come down – her face was still smudged with dirt, but at least she was wearing a clean t-shirt and jeans. 

“We climbed the big oak today,” was the first thing Carl said after prayer. 

Kay raised her eyebrows and Eliot tried to gauge if that was something he’d be allowed to do normally. “Did you now,” Kay asked, doubt in her voice, and Carl faltered in his confidence, looking at Parker as he said, 

“Yeah, we did. Right?” 

“We did,” Parker nodded through a mouthful of roast, and Eliot nudged her arm and told her not to talk with her mouth full. “But we did,” she said after she’d swallowed. 

“That tree’s near six feet wide – how’d you manage that?” Kay asked, her indulgent tone so practiced it almost passed for curious. 

Parker shrugged, “I just climbed it. And then I helped Carl climb it.” 

“Parker likes climbing stuff,” Eliot told Kay, and she looked at him in questioning surprise and he nodded; if Parker said she climbed it, she climbed it. 

It was something Kay couldn’t quite fathom, that was clear, but all she said was, “As long as you’re bein’ careful doin’ it.” 

The conversation slowly moved to the horses, and Eliot ended up suggesting that he take Parker and Carl out for a ride once he saw his youngest nephew’s interest in the topic. Parker was enthusiastic but Carl required some wheedling – Eliot felt a twinge of guilt at how resistant Carl was, knowing that it was his fault the kid didn't know him from a stranger on the street. That’d be rectified soon enough though. 

 

Chapter 8

Parker sits on the edge of the porch, a couple feet away from Carl – Carl’s throwing a tennis ball for the dog, and Eliot and Kay are behind them, talking. Parker keeps an ear out for anything that might suggest Kay doesn’t want her or Eliot around any more, and so it takes her longer than usual to notice that Carl’s moved a little closer to her. 

“Parker,” he says quietly, and she glances over at him, wondering why he’s whispering. 

“What?” 

The sun’s already disappeared, but there was still some light left – Parker’d never lived in a place with so much wide-open space before, a place where you could see so much sky all at once. 

“Do you think we could climb the tree again tomorrow?” 

Parker looks back at Eliot, who’s tracking the tennis ball with his eyes, a bottle of beer in his hand. “Sure,” she tells Carl, because Eliot had never said that she couldn’t climb up the tree, and neither did Kay, and they hadn’t said they shouldn’t either. 

Carl looks back to see what she’s looking at, and he notices that it’s Eliot at the same time that Eliot’s eyes shift to look at them. The dog drops the ball at Carl’s feet and Carl turns around in an instant. Parker gives an annoyed nod at Eliot’s silent ‘be good’ face. 

“Will you come with me?” Carl asks, throwing the ball again, and Parker tries to look at his face, but he just looks straight ahead.

“Okay,” Parker shrugs, and Carl stands up, and she stands up with them, but Kay’s voice stops them before they take their first step, 

“An’ where’d you two think you’re goin’?”

“Just ‘round to the shed, Ma,” Carl tells her, but he doesn’t actually move until Kay says, 

“Well, just be back before it gets good and dark, hear?” 

“’Course Ma,” Carl grins, and he takes Parker’s hand, and she looks down at it in surprise before Carl’s tugging her away from the porch and around the house – Eliot’s truck is still in the driveway. Everything in the world looks a little darker, and Parker follows Carl even after he lets go of her hand. “That’s the shed,” he tells her when they cross past the garden. It’s a little bigger than the chicken coop, and Parker uses the fence beside it to get to the roof while Carl climbs a small pile of wood. 

The metal of the roofing is still a little warm under her fingers, and she sits down with her legs out in front of her. Carl sits down beside her, and they sit like that until Parker leans back, to lie down. 

The sky looks even bigger now, and she watches it; it’s a shade darker than when they first came out here, and while everything on the ground is either whiter or blacker, the sky’s still just smogy. 

“Tell me what Uncle Eliot’s like,” Carl says to her, lying down beside her, and Parker turns her head to look at him. 

“What do you mean?” she asks, not sure what kind of stuff he wants to know. She knows that she can’t tell him what Eliot does – what he really does. What she’s seen him do, and what he thinks she hasn’t seen him do. 

Carl shrugs, the gesture moving his arms as well as his shoulders. “Star,” he says instead of answering, pointing up at the sky. Parker looks up, and there’s a dot of light in the sky that could be a star. 

“Have you ever wished upon a star?” he asks her, and Parker shakes her head, interested. Carl always had something different to say, something new to share, a way of seeing something she’d never thought about before. The kids at school weren’t nearly as interesting as Carl was, and she didn’t really know why she found him so fascinating. 

“There’s a song that goes with it,” he says, remembering. Instead of singing it though, he just says, “It goes, um, Star light, star bright, First star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight," and he nods to himself.

Parker memorizes the words as he says them, waiting for more. When he looks at her though, she realizes that he’s finished. “And then you just wish?” she asks, and he nods, 

“You go first.” 

Parker looks up at the star, her mind blank. “I, I don’t know how,” she admits after a second, softly, peeking back at Carl, hoping he won’t laugh at her. She's wished at a birthday cake before, but she doesn't know if a star is different. 

“You just wish,” he says, like it’s as simple as that. And then he closes his eyes, folds his fingers together across his chest. Parker watches the corners of his eye twitch as the edges of his mouth come up – his fingers squeeze, and his chest rises, and he opens his eyes with a smile. “Like that.” 

It doesn’t seem like it’s going to work, but Carl looks like he really wants her to, so she closes her eyes, squeezes her fingers together, takes a deep breathe, and thinks that she wants to see Nate again, soon. When she opens her eyes, she waits for something, but there’s nothing different. 

Soon there’s a handful of other stars in the sky, and Parker remembers that Carl asked about Eliot. 

“I like Eliot,” she tells him, connecting the stars in the sky with glowing lines in her mind. “He makes really good food, and he takes me rock climbing, and camping sometimes, and he knows how to make a fire and what plants you can eat. He keeps me and my Dad and everyone safe,” she says, because part of their story was that Eliot was security, and she could say that about him. 

“Who’re all of you?” Carl asks quietly, and Parker tries not to think about how much she misses them when she says, 

“Me and Nate.”

“Your Dad.” 

Parker nods. “And Sophie.” 

“Is she your Ma?” Carl asks, softly, and Parker nods again, 

“Yeah. And Hardison. Sometimes Eliot lets people hurt him to keep us safe – but he always wins; he can have a fight with anyone and win. And he’s never hurt us,” she adds, because that was the most important. Eliot could hurt all of them, if he wanted to, but he wouldn’t.

“My brothers John and Matthew say that he’s a spy,” Carl tells her, and that’s almost true so she doesn’t say anything. “They said they heard Ma talking about him being in the army, and going on covert missions and stuff, overseas. And about how he was doing really dangerous stuff, and she might never see him again. They say that he jumps out of planes, and can hold his breath for an hour, and that he digs his way into army bases and into buildings and stuff, so that he can kill people, and get information. And they said that he has scars everywhere, from all the different people he’s fought, and that once he’d even fought a bear and a wolf at the same time.” 

Carl’s voice gets quiet, really quiet, and Parker listens carefully as he says, “And they said that he told them that maybe one day, they could do all the stuff he does. But that I couldn’t do anything, and that’s why he never came back. I know it’s stupid, and not true,” he tells her, making a sound that was supposed to be a laugh. “But that’s what they say.” 

Parker sat up – Carl, all he knew about Eliot was stuff he’d heard from his brothers. Some of it might’ve been true, but Carl had never known Eliot. Eliot had never taken him to a climbing wall, or made him pancakes with faces on them, or fought a man with a gun for him.

“Come on,” she tells Carl, pushing herself down the roof and over the edge, landing softly on her feet. 

Carl sits up on the roof, and she sees his head staring down at her. “How’d you do that?” he wonders, and she waves at him to come down. He goes the long way, climbing down the pile of wood. When they get to the porch, Kay and Eliot are still there, the light from the kitchen shining through the window and stretching along the ground. 

“There they are,” Kay says, and Parker ignores her, walking over to Eliot and taking his hand. 

“Hey darlin’,” he says, smiling down at her, letting her pull him up so that he’s not leaning back in his seat. Carl waits on the first step up from the ground, shifting uneasily. After a second, the smile turns into a little frown. “What is it?” 

“Make pancakes for me and Carl,” she tells him, in no uncertain terms, and he looks surprised, and she takes the beer bottle out of his hand and puts it on the ground so she can pull him all the way up from the seat. He stands, looking down at her, confused. “And cinnamon buns.” 

“It’s nearly bedtime,” Kay says, but she doesn’t understand. 

Parker glares at her, and takes a step back so that she’s closer to Eliot. “Eliot has to make pancakes for me and Carl,” she says again; it has to happen tonight, and it has to be Eliot, Carl, and pancakes. 

“Kay, it’s all right,” Eliot says, and he steps past Parker and closer to Carl, who looks uncomfortable. “You want some pancakes, Carl?” Eliot asks, and Carl looks down at the ground and shrugs. 

“That means yes,” Parker tells them, taking Eliot’s hand again and pulling him to the door. Once she gets everyone into the kitchen, she makes Carl sit on the countertop next to the stove, and she sits right beside him, making sure that this one thing happens for Carl. 

 

Chapter 9 

Parker was staring out the window with a forlorn look on her face, her arms folded on the table, her cheek resting on them. “Why don’t you go play with Carl?” Eliot suggested, and Parker sighed deeply. 

“It’s raining outside,” she told him dramatically, as if he’d somehow not noticed. Eliot smiled, keeping the edges of it tight so he didn’t accidentally grin at her disproportionate misery. 

She was right though – it was raining outside, the water coming down in sheets that had been pounding against the siding of the house all day. The thick grey clouds blocked out most of the sun; what made it through was dusty, and they had the light on in the kitchen even though it was only a couple hours past noon. 

“Believe it or not,” he told her, folding his arms and half-mimicking her posture, keeping his eyes on her, “There are things to do inside the house.” 

Parker turned her head away from the window, and they were looking at each other now. “Can’t we go play outside again?” she asked. 

“No,” Eliot answered, leaving no room for debate. Parker had disappeared with Carl after breakfast, and when they showed up for lunch they were soaked through to the skin, a small puddle forming in the kitchen, at their feet. 

Parker frowned at him, frustrated, and she pushed off the table and back into the chair. “I’m bored, Eliot,” she complained, pulling her feet up onto the seat and hugging her knees. Eliot’s head tilted to the side, and he repeated, 

“There are things to do inside the house.” 

She eyed him critically. “Like what?” she asked suspiciously. 

Eliot sat up, his elbows on the table, and looked over at the clock. Nearly past two, and that gave them a couple hours at least to occupy. If the rain let up before night, he doubted that Kay would be willing to let Parker and Carl out of the house. The mess they made with water alone was impressive enough – he didn’t want to see what it would be like to add mud into the equation. 

“You can read,” he said, and she gave him a dry, unimpressed look. “You could help me cook dinner. Or you could go play with Carl. I know there’re board games in a closet somewhere. I can get some paper and pencils together and you can draw,” he added, because he’d seen her doodling on scrap pieces of paper before, and the backs of all her school notebooks were filled with pictures she’d done while, Eliot guessed, she was supposed to be paying attention. 

None of them seemed to be grabbing her attention, and she shifted her feet to the seat of the chair, so she was crouched down, still hugging her legs, her balance perfect. “But I want to do something,” she stressed, but Eliot was drawing a blank on something that would get her running around without breaking anything, or upsetting Kay. 

“Sometimes you just have to work with what you have,” he told her, and that was the dreary truth of it. 

Parker took a deep breath, her chin resting on her knees. “I’m going to go see what Carl’s doing,” she told him, standing up on the chair and jumping down from it. 

“Parker,” he called after her, and she stopped in the doorway of the kitchen. “You guys stay in the house.” 

“I know,” Parker grumbled, and she leaned back against the frame, waiting for more – but Kay came into the kitchen just as Eliot was going to remind her not to take anything, and Parker used the distraction to slip away. 

Kay looked at the empty doorway and then to him, raising her eyebrow. “She always such a handful?” she asked, her voice low so Parker couldn’t overhear; it wouldn’t help if Parker wanted to hear, but he’d heard the door to Carl’s room open upstairs (it had a distinctive squeak to it) so he knew she wasn’t lingering. 

“Usually, yeah,” Eliot nodded, keeping his voice quiet anyway, getting up from the table and leaning against the counter, his arms folding over his chest. “But I know I’d go stir crazy at her age, holed up at home.” 

Kay shot him a look, and he realized what it sounded like. “Carl’s gonna run clean outta clothes at this rate,” Kay told him, her voice edging into the defensive. 

“I just meant that she has a lot of energy,” Eliot explained quickly. Kay waited for him to keep going, and he was glad she didn’t seem to be offended. “She’s not used to this – a backyard to play in, a daily routine; she doesn’t know how to do it. It’s different, back in the city. And she’s missin’ home pretty bad right now.” 

“How’s it going back there?” Kay asked, and Eliot shrugged – the phone was in his pocket, and he reached down to make sure Parker hadn’t gotten around to swiping it. It was still there, unresponsive.

“Waiting to hear.” 

Kay looked over at the corded phone that was anchored to the wall – it looked like it was part of a different era, and Eliot smiled when he thought of what Hardison would say. “Can use mine if you need.” 

“That’s alright; I’m gonna let them call me when they’re ready. Should be a couple more days.” 

“I’m sure they’re all right,” Kay said, passing by him and squeezing his arm reassuringly. She’d misinterpreted his concern, and he watched her as she picked up the phone. “Speakin’ of, I gotta- that’s weird,” she frowned, and she stopped punching numbers in. She put it up to her ear, but Eliot could hear the sound it was making – somehow, Kay still had a dial-up Internet connection. 

“Carl,” Kay called into the house, “You on the Internet?” 

Eliot was in the hallway as Carl came down the stairs – Parker wasn’t with him, and Eliot knew exactly where she was. 

The small den that housed the computer wasn’t very large, and even though there was no one sitting in the desk chair, the computer screen had a webpage browser open on it, and Eliot saw that Parker had almost managed to sign into some kind of email. She must’ve gotten delayed by having to connect, and he was thankful for Kay’s century-old set up. 

“Parker, you’ve got five seconds to come out from wherever you’re hiding,” he said, voice tight, and he shook his head minutely at Kay when she peeked through the door. He heard her ushering Carl into the kitchen, and there was a noise behind him as his mental count reached five. 

Parker stood against the wall, pressing against it like she might just slip through if she tried hard enough. Keeping an eye on her, he disconnected from the web, shutting down the computer. Turning off the screen, he straightened to face Parker, who was resolutely not looking at him. 

“People kidnapped you Parker,” he said, taking a step forward, and she shrunk back; he regulated his tone to soften the anger in it. “And I know that’s a lot for you to deal with, I get it. I’ve been kidnapped before too,” he told her, and she swallowed, turning further away from him, sniffing. 

“It’s not fun, is it?” he asked, and she didn’t answer, and he crouched down, a couple feet away from her. “It’s terrifying. And you don’t know what’s going on, and you’re all alone, and there’s strange people everywhere that yell at you.” He paused for a second, shoving his own personal memories far, far away. “And I know, that when you get out, all you want to do is curl up with the people you love. You want to pretend like it never happened. But we can’t get to that part until things are safe for you Parker. I know you want to see Nate. And Sophie, and Hardison. But right now, that’s not an option.” 

Parker was crying now, but he was close enough that if she wanted to, she could come to him. “If you go on that computer, if you send that email? They could find us – and not just us. They would find Kay, and Carl too. And they might hurt them.” 

“I want to go home,” Parker managed through her tears, struggling to speak, and Eliot shook his head. She pushed off the wall and hugged him, her arms wrapping around his neck tightly.

“Soon,” he told her, rubbing her back, “But right now we have to stay here. And you have to listen to me. When I say don’t go on the computer, I mean don’t go on the computer.” 

The tears stopped, and Parker hung off him, still sniffing. “But it’s just an email.” 

“No,” Eliot said, shaking his head, and Parker pressed her chin into his shoulder – her very pointy chin – venting her frustrations. 

“I hate it,” Parker muttered, her fists clenching the fabric of his shirt. “And I hate them. I hate them all.” 

“Nate’s taking care of it,” he told her reassuringly. They weren’t a very forgiving bunch, and it wasn’t the best virtue to pass along, but he hated them too. If not for Parker, he’d be right there making their lives hell with the rest of the crew. 

“I miss him,” she whispered, and Eliot hugged her tightly, 

“I know. And he misses you too. But that doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want.” 

He pulled away slightly, and Parker was avoiding his eyes again; but it because of her guilt now, not fear, and he stood up, letting her hug him once more before pulling away. “Go wash your face, and meet me in the kitchen,” he told her, giving her a little push to get her going. 

Parker disappeared into the bathroom, and he went into the kitchen, where Kay was peeling potatoes by the sink. She looked up curiously, and he shrugged. “You can use the phone now,” he told her, taking over the peeling, and she didn’t ask any questions. When Parker came back, he pointed at the table and she frowned. 

“Sit down,” he clarified, and her frown deepened. 

“I wanna read now,” she tried weakly, and he shook his head, 

“Should’ve thought of that before you went on the computer. Sit,” he said again, and she glared at the ground for a moment before moving; begrudgingly, she climbed onto a seat and sat down, leaning back unhappily. “You can read after dinner,” he told her after a second, then returned to the potatoes. The next time he looked back, she was staring at the window, pensive and still. 

Dinner was quiet, Carl looking nervously between the three of them; Kay kept the idle conversation going for the most part, and Parker ate as quickly as she could; she was done before everyone else, and her attempts to wait patiently while everyone else finished were commendable. 

“Can me and Carl go play?” she asked Eliot the second Kay had placed her fork down on the plate, and Eliot glanced at Kay before nodding,

“Just don’t go outside,” he told her, and she nodded solemnly before sliding out of the chair and running out the door with Carl. 

Kay stood as well, and she kissed the top of Eliot’s head as she passed him, leaning down with a hand on his shoulder; it took him back decades, and he found the air stopped in his throat from the sudden emotion. 

“Done well,” Kay muttered, and she left him for a minute, giving him the time he needed to put himself back together.


	2. Part 2

Chapter 10

The street that Parker’s standing on is familiar – achingly familiar, from the cracks in the sidewalk that snake underneath her feet, to the trees that are decorated with colors that mean it’ll be winter soon. The edges of the world fuzz and dissolve into nothing, but that isn’t the part that feels weird.

Little Nicky is on the ground, trying to crawl under the frame of her bike, and she wants to giggle at him, giggle with him, but there’s something wrong. 

“Park,” Nicky calls, shrieking, and she looks down at him – he’s got his head under the frame, almost on the other side, and he’s grinning up at her, pleased.

There’s a noise behind them and Parker turns, stepping in front of Nicky, defensive, but it’s only Nate. 

“I miss you,” she tells him, and he doesn’t say anything, just looks at her, thinking. The bike squeaks and she turns back – Nicky’s gotten onto it somehow, and it starts rolling down the sidewalk. Before Parker can start running after him, he becomes a man with a bandana, with a gun in his hand and a scar over his eye. She trips as she scrambles back, landing hard on her arm – for a second she can’t breath, and when she looks up, he’s standing over her, the gun pointed at her head. 

But somehow there’s a gun in her hand too, the one she didn’t fall on, and she lifts it up at him and shoots. 

\- 

Parker sits up in the bed, disoriented and confused, feeling gross and out of breath. The walls around her don’t look like her room, and they don’t look like Nate and Sophie’s room either. There’s a squeak a couple feet away that makes her jerk, and she gets tangled in the covers as she scrambles around to face it. 

Carl’s face is in the crack between the door and the doorframe, and his hand rests on the doorknob as he stares at her. 

Carl – Eliot’s family. Eliot’s sister, Kay. Carl – the memories come back, all of them, all at once, and she starts trembling when she realizes that she’s far, far away from home. There is no Nate here, there is no Sophie, and there’s no way she can make sure that they’re okay.

Carl disappears from the door and Parker swallows, closing her eyes tightly. In her nightmare, the man in the bandana had turned into Nate just as she pulled the trigger. 

In her nightmare, it wasn’t the man in the bandana that she shot. 

There are steps coming up the stairs, and Parker tries to ignore them as she holds the picture in her mind. Nate was safe back home, and she was safe here, and everyone was safe and all right. 

“Parker?” Eliot asks softly from across the room, and Parker doesn’t open her eyes, just waits until the picture doesn’t look that real anymore. Waits until she notices all the things that are wrong with it, all the details that aren’t there. Just a dream, she tells herself, letting the picture go, it was just a dream, and they were okay. 

Eliot’s on the edge of the bed, but she doesn’t go to him. 

“When was the last time you had one of those nightmares?” Eliot asks, and Parker wants to see Nate so bad that it hurts. Instead she reaches out to grab Bunny, hugging him tight to her chest and shifting them as far back from Eliot as they can get. 

She stares at the floor instead of looking at Eliot. Nate sent her away, but Eliot was the one keeping her here. And she didn’t want to be here. 

Eliot doesn’t come closer, but he doesn’t leave either. Just says in his patient voice: “Parker, you’re safe here. I’m not going to let anything hurt you.” 

But that isn’t what she’s scared of, and that’s not what she cares about. “I want to go home,” she tells him softly, but she knows what he’s going to say. 

“We can’t, Parker.” And then he sighs, and he sounds tired, and Parker can’t help but wonder if he’s still mad from yesterday, when she tried to send Hardison that email. “There’s breakfast on the table downstairs,” Eliot says, standing, “You should get dressed and come down.”

It’s not a question, and Parker presses Bunny back between the blankets, hiding him before she gets up so that when Eliot makes the bed, Bunny’s still safe and invisible. 

Carl’s not in the hallway anymore when she’s dressed, and she takes her time going down the stairs. There are slight creaks under her feet and she pays attention to them, keeping track of them in her head. Then she goes back and comes down again, putting her feet where they won’t make any noise, and the third time she does it, she’s silent. 

But there’s no avoiding the kitchen forever, and when she finally goes in, Kay’s sitting at the table with a notepad and a pen, and Carl and Eliot are already eating. Parker sits down at her seat but doesn’t reach out to take anything – Nate and Sophie are probably having breakfast right now. 

“Dr. Jimmy’s coming by this evening to check on Coal – did you want to be there for that Carl?” Kay asks, and Eliot puts some bacon and eggs on her plate, adding a slice of toast. 

Eliot didn’t make breakfast today, because the bacon doesn’t look as crisp as it usually does – Parker stares at it, folding her arms, not hungry. 

“Coal’s my horse, Uncle Eliot,” Carl says, and Parker remembers seeing the little horse in the barn before, with its shaved spot. 

“Really? How old is he?” Eliot asks, and Parker ignores him when he looks at her. She knows he wants her to eat, and be nice, but she doesn’t want to do either. All she wants to do is go upstairs and hide under the blankets.

“Almost five months,” Carl smiles, and Parker counts back the days – it’s been four days since Eliot took her away from Boston, four days since the last time she’d seen any of the others. But they were okay, she tells herself, otherwise they would’ve called Eliot. 

Eliot smiles at Carl and asks, “You know how to take care of a horse, Carl?” 

Carl nods eagerly, and Parker wants to get up and leave, but she knows Eliot’ll won’t be happy if she does. “Yeah. You gotta feed ‘em, and groom ‘em, and make sure they’re gettin’ the proper exercise, an’ make sure their hooves’re alright, and they ain’t hurtin’ or anything. An’ you gotta make sure that the tack fits ‘em well, and isn’t pinchin’ anywhere.” 

“Sounds like you know what you’re talking about.” Eliot looks at Parker and she leans back in her seat, tired. Her stomach’s starting to hurt, and she stares at the edge of the wooden table, trying to ignore everything. No one talks for a moment, but then Carl says, nervously, 

“Uncle Eliot?” and Eliot stops staring at her, looking at Carl instead. 

“Yeah buddy?” 

“D’you think we could go ridin’ soon?” he asks quietly, and Parker wonders if anyone will notice if she slips off the chair and climbs up the big oak tree. 

Before Eliot can answer, Kay says, “Not t’day – still too muddy to go out t’day.” 

“Tomorrow,” Eliot promises with a smile and a wink, and Parker shifts in her seat, her leg slipping off – but Eliot catches her before she can get anywhere. “Finish eating Parker,” he tells her, and she sighs, leaning back against her seat again. 

“Can I go upstairs?” she tries, and Eliot frowns, and she doesn’t look up at him, hoping she asked properly. 

Carl’s looking at her too, and Kay says, “What’s the matter sweetheart? Not feelin’ well?” 

Sophie calls her ‘sweetheart’ sometimes, and hearing Kay say it just makes her feel less hungry. “I feel sick,” she mutters, and Eliot reaches over, and she squirms as his hand touches her forehead. 

“You don’t feel warm,” he says, and now everyone’s looking at her, and Parker shakes her head, 

“Please?” 

“Alright,” Eliot says softly, and Parker slips off the seat, leaving the kitchen as fast as she can. 

Bunny's right where she left him, and she pulls him out of the fold in the blankets that stayed snug between the wall and the bed. Crawling into the bed, she pulls the covers tight over her head, and curls into Bunny. 

"Keep them safe?" she whispers to Bunny, pretending that he has super powers, and he can do it. Bunny promises that he will; for a while she closes her eyes, remembering Nate's voice, and how Sophie still brushed her hair when it got too tangled, and the way that Hardison would usually have one of the televisions playing some kind of show just for her. It feels like it’s been so long. 

The door opens and Parker pulls the blankets back a little bit – it’s Eliot, and he crouches in front of the bed. "How you doing darlin'?" he asks, and she shrugs, pulling Bunny closer. "What's wrong?" he asks, his voice softer, worried, and Parker shrugs again; she'd been feeling better, but she wasn't sure if she still was. 

Eliot crouches next to the bed for a while, but Parker doesn't say anything. Eventually he asks, "Do you want to come into town with me and Carl?" 

Going into town would mean getting out of the bed - Parker shakes her head. 

"We're gonna be gone a couple hours - you okay by yourself here?" 

"Yeah," Parker nods. 

"No computer, no phone; no doing anything you're not supposed to, right?" he says, and Parker nods again, thinking how angry he was yesterday. She doesn't want that to happen again, and she doesn't want Kay or Carl to be hurt either. "Promise?" he asks, and Parker nods again, 

"Promise." He leans forward to kiss her head, and Parker closes her eyes. 

"I'll be back," he says when she opens them, and she watches him go out the door, pulling it until it's only open a crack. 

 

Chapter 11 

Eliot liked to think that he took the line between paranoia and keeping a low profile fairly seriously. There wasn’t much danger heading into a small, two-diner town to get some stuff from the general store, and Carl looked so hopeful about the prospect of spending some time with him, he couldn’t say no. So with Carl in tow, he took Kay’s old beater and let the kid direct him down the three crossroads. 

Carl was a good kid, and he had a good heart - he held the door open for anyone, he was polite to every Mister and Miss' they encountered, he offered to help Mrs. Beads take her groceries out to her car, and he insisted that Eliot get some milk chocolate treats because 'Parker said she liked them'. 

"How about we get some lunch, just you and me," Eliot suggested, because he trusted Kay to keep Parker from acting on her homesickness, and the kid kept giving him sharp, nervous glances. They weren't frightened, just... uncertain. Eliot hated it. 

"Ma won’t need us back?" Carl asked, opening the trunk of the car and putting his bag inside. 

Eliot put down the bags he was holding as well, closing the truck as he straightened; "I think they'll be okay for a while. What do you say?" 

"Alright, Uncle Eliot," Carl said, polite as ever, but Eliot could see his nervousness, the tick of his elbow. 

There was a diner just down the street, and Eliot put a precautionary hand on Carl's shoulder as they crossed – there weren’t any cars around, but Eliot didn’t mind using the pretense of safety as a guise to ease Carl into some comfort. The kid stiffened for a moment, but by the time Eliot was opening the door for him, he'd relaxed. 

"What's good ‘round here?" Eliot asked after they were seated, and Carl studied the menu from across the table. 

"Ma loves the chicken roast," Carl said, and he looked up at Eliot, his lips perusing thoughtfully. "But I think you'd like the meat lasagne. Or the stew. I think you'd like the stew too." 

Both sounded good to Eliot, and he asked, "What are you going to have?" 

Carl looked back down at the menu - Eliot saw his eyes dart to the right, scanning the prices. "No, don't do that," Eliot said gently, and Carl froze, confused. 

"Do what?" 

"Get what you want," Eliot told him, "Doesn't matter what it is. What do you want?" 

Carl frowned. "I like mac n’ cheese," he said, without looking down, and Eliot nodded, 

"Then we'll get the mac and cheese for you, and a helping of lasagne for me." 

Carl accepted a milkshake after Eliot promised not to tell Kay about it, and Eliot ordered water for himself. "Gonna be a rancher one day?" Eliot asked as they waited for their food, and Carl looked out the window, 

"I dunno know. Maybe?" 

"What do you like to do?" he asked, and he wasn't quite expecting Carl to answer with his own question: 

"Are you a spy?" 

It didn't sound like something Parker would say to him, and Eliot frowned. "What do you mean?" 

"Matthew and John say that you're a spy, an’ that you can hold your breath for an hour, an’ that you're super strong – an’ Parker says that you can win against anyone. I just... I wanna to know s’all," he finished weakly; seemed Carl's older brothers had been telling tall tales about him.

Maybe not so tall, but that wasn't relevant.

"I was in the army," he told him; he owed the kid that much. "That's why I wasn't around much, when you were born. Even before then - I didn't get to seeing Matthew and John that much either. But I wasn't a spy." 

"Then what'd you do?" Carl asked, finally working up the courage to look up at him. And he saw hope there, and he wondered how his story had gotten twisted over the years - two teenage boys with wild imaginations and little bits of secretive information? No wonder Carl had been uneasy around him before. 

"Went into the military fresh out of high school. Stayed there for a few years - worked in a couple countries, all over the place. Then I took some time off to find myself... and eventually I found a job working with Parker's Dad, a few years back." 

It was vague, but it wasn't untrue; and yet he could see that Carl wasn't satisfied, and Eliot wasn't sure how much more he could give. 

"Why couldn't you come ‘fore now?" Carl asked quietly, subdued, and the waitress chose that moment to bring around their meals. The food was still steaming, and Eliot smiled warmly at her - she was a little younger than him, but not by much. She knew Carl, and when she'd asked who he was, he'd told her he was his uncle. When she came back to fill his water, she winked. 

Carl blew at his mac and cheese, and Eliot couldn't help but be reminded of Parker when she was younger; content with having a question ignored in favour of remaining in the peripheral. "Some of the things I did," he started, waiting until Carl was paying attention, before continuing, "Some of those things, they were dangerous. And I cared about you guys too much to let the people who were coming after me, come after you. I wanted to keep you safe.” 

“Were you here when Pa died?” Carl asked, his voice muffled behind a spoonful of mac and cheese. 

“No,” Eliot said, “But I was here for the funeral.” And he’d held Carl throughout the whole service, and the baby boy, just a few months old, hadn’t cried once. 

“Did you know him?” he asked softly, and Eliot knew he didn’t get around to asking Kay or his brothers these questions often. There was a pre-emptive resignation in his voice, and Eliot wondered how many times he’d had his questions ignored. 

Eliot shook his head, “Not very well.” 

“Sometimes I wish I had a Papa,” Carl admitted, and Eliot leaned his elbows on the table. “I know Ma misses him. She doesn’t talk about it, but I know she does.” 

“You all miss him,” Eliot added gently, and Carl nodded. 

“You’re leavin’ soon,” he said, and Eliot nodded, 

“In a couple days, yeah.” 

“Will you come back this time?” Carl asked, and Eliot nodded, 

“I will.” And he didn’t make promises lightly. 

 

Chapter 12

There are noises down in the kitchen, strange noises, noises that Parker’s never heard before. Not scary noises, just… different. For a while she hugs Bunny, pulling the blankets off her when she gets too warm, and pulling them back on when she gets too cold. But after a while, the noises don’t stop, she gets bored of lying there, and her stomach doesn’t hurt anymore, so she hides Bunny carefully in the blankets and creeps downstairs. 

The stairs are silent as she walks down them, making sure to step in the places that won’t squeak or creak. In the hallway she looks to the computer room – Eliot’s not here to stop her, and she could probably get an email to Hardison before Kay noticed. The noises have stopped, but Kay would still be busy doing things. It wouldn’t take as long, now that she knew she had to connect the computer to the Internet first.

But Nate had told her to be good before he kissed her on the head and shut the door, and there’s a small part of her that wonders if maybe, just maybe, no one will respond to a message from her. 

So Parker goes right instead, peeking around the wall to see what Kay’s doing. The woman is standing at the sink, peeling something. She makes the same movements that Eliot does – Parker watches her for a minute, coming out to lean against the wall, wondering why they’re the same. At one point Kay even lifts her arm up to her face, scratching her nose with the bone of her wrist, just like Eliot does. 

Kay eventually drops the last potato she’s peeling, and turns. There’s a small gasp of surprise when she notices Parker standing there, and Parker waits for her to get mad and tell her she shouldn’t be sneaking up on people. 

“Was just about tp come up an’ check on you, sweetheart,” Kay says instead, and Parker frowns. “How’re you feelin’?” Kay asks, coming a couple steps closer. 

Parker shrugs, squinting against the light coming in from the window behind Kay. “Okay,” she says. Kay’s keeps looking at her, and Parker lets her eyes wander over to the backdoor. 

“Hungry?” Kay asks, and there’s something- something, in her voice. 

Parker shrugs again, wondering when Eliot and Carl are going to be back. 

“Sit down an’ I’ll make you some toast,” Kay says, and Parker sits on her seat. “Carl an’ Eliot left ‘bout an hour ago – I reckon they stopped by for somethin’ to eat. Shouldn’t be too much longer.” It was almost like when Hardison talked just to be talking – except different, a little bit. But Parker kind of liked it. “Y’know, you could sit in for that appointment with Dr. Jimmy, when he comes by. Carl’ll be there. If you’d like. If you’re not scared of needles or anythin’, that is. Gonna have to give the poor soul a shot or two, but I the foal’s gonna make, y’know? Miracle, is what that is. Say, Eliot told you much  
‘bout us?” 

The question and the pause after it are unexpected, and Parker looks up from her toast with homemade jam, her mouth full. They didn’t go over that – what was she supposed to say to that? 

Kay watches her for a second and then laughs: “I’ll take that as a no. Not to worry Parker,” she adds, and Parker wonders if Kay had seen her panic. 

The toast is almost all done, and Parker’s not sure what she’s supposed to do. She finishes off the last couple bites in silence, and Kay takes the plate. “I was gonna make some jam – why don’tcha sit up on the counter an’ help me?” she says, and Parker slides off her chair and looks up at the countertop cautiously. There’s already a bowl there with yellow-squish in it, and Kay moves it. 

“You don’t like it when I sit up there,” she says, because she knows what the disapproving looks mean, and Eliot’s not here to say it’s okay. 

Kay raises her eyebrow, and Parker tells herself not to back away. “You do it anyway, don’tcha? 

“Yes,” Parker says, because that was true. 

“Then what’s the problem?” 

Kay grins at her, and Parker feels herself liking Kay a little more. Kay puts a bowl in the sink while Parker climbs up on the countertop – there’s a basket of strawberries that Kay hands her, with a small knife, and she says, “Hull those out for me.” 

Parker looks at the bowl, and frowns. “What’s that?” 

“Ely’s never made jam with you?” Kay asks, confused, and Parker feels like Eliot’s done something terrible. She doesn’t want to shake her head, and she doesn’t have to. “Heavens, I’ll have to talk to him ‘bout that,” Kay mutters, sighing. “You know how to handle a knife?” she asks, and Parker nods – Eliot had shown her the proper way to hold a knife after she’d almost stabbed Hardison in the shoulder one time. 

Kay takes the knife from her, and a strawberry out of the basket. “Put it just under the leafy bit here, turn the strawberry, an’,” the green part pops out and into the sink, and Kay puts the strawberry in the bowl. 

“Eliot does that sometimes,” Parker tells her, “Is that hull?” 

“That’d be hullin’,” Kay nods, and she passes the knife to Parker. The knife doesn’t sit in her hand as well as it does in Kay’s, so she moves it, letting it sit more like a lockpick. It’s a lot easier that way, and after the first couple strawberries, Kay stops watching her out of the corner of her eye. 

Kay moves around the kitchen, setting up jars, looking through cupboards, humming to herself – Parker thinks she has a really nice voice, but she doesn’t say it – and when there’s a pot on the stove with something in it, Kay finally speaks again. “You spend a lot of time with Ely, back home?” 

The strawberries that Parker’s hulled don’t look as nice as Kay’s, but she’s almost quick at it now. “Yeah,” she says, “When he’s not away.” 

“Ely away a lot?” Kay asks, and Parker shrugs – sometimes it feels like Eliot’s away for forever, and sometimes it feels like he’s been home for years. “Do you know where he goes?” Kay asks, and Parker shakes her head – sometimes she finds out, by accident, but usually Eliot just disappears, and comes back. 

The thing on the stove starts to bubble, and Kay moves to it – Parker’s half done the strawberries when Kay talks again. “How’re you feeling now, hon?”

Parker thinks about it, and says, “Better,” softly, wondering when Eliot’s going to come back with Carl. It’s still muddy outside, but maybe Kay would let them go out. 

“Must be missin’ your Ma an’ Pa something bad,” Kay says, and Parker notices that she’s being watched again, and she stops hulling strawberries for a moment. 

“I want to go home,” she tells Kay, but it never works with Eliot, so she doesn’t think it’ll work with Kay. 

Kay nods, comes over, puts a hand on her knee – Parker doesn’t move; Kay isn’t a bad person, but people don’t usually come near her, not unless it’s Nate or someone. “You’ll be goin’ back soon. I’m sure they’re missin’ you just as much as you’re missing ‘em.” 

Parker remembers her dream, the gun, waking up afraid and alone. “Then why can’t I talk to them?” she asks quietly, and Kay’s hand touches her shoulder, her fingers squeezing gently. 

“I don’t know exactly what it was that happened,” Kay says, and Parker tenses, glancing at the door– Kay knows that they’ve lied to her, and Parker wonders if she’ll be mad. “But I know that you an’ Ely ain’t tell the truth. Whatever it is, knowin’ Ely – you have to love someone a whole lot if you’re gonna send ‘em away, just so that they’re safe. Whatever it is they’ve gotten into, if Ely brought you here, then here’s the safest place for you.” 

Parker frowns – everyone kept saying that, and it doesn’t sound like a very good reason to her. “But I can take care of myself.” 

Kay makes a sad face and comes closer, putting a hand on the side of Parker’s head – it’s gentle, and it doesn’t fist in her hair. “Parker, I know you probably don’t wanna hear this, but – you’re still their little girl. All they’re doin’ is protect you.” 

“But I know how to – ” Parker catches herself, biting her lip; Kay doesn’t know about the time before Nate. And Parker can’t tell her, and she glares at the floor. “I just want to see my Dad,” she tries, because sometimes people didn’t understand what Nate meant to her. 

“We know,” Kay says, and she pulls Parker into a hug. Parker hugs back, just a little, and it helps a bit. 

 

Chapter 13

“Parker!” Eliot shouted, and Parker froze, poised to jump off the edge of the loft and onto a rafter beam. They both knew that was exactly what she wasn’t supposed to be doing – but she was chasing cats around the barn, and she wasn’t entirely happy with him. 

“It’s safe,” she told him, right before jumping. What constituted ‘safe’ in her mind, he had no idea, but she made the jump without a problem, pulling herself up onto the flat of the beam smoothly. 

Eliot closed his eyes, reminding himself that his composure wasn’t going be compromised by a ten-year-old with a grudge. 

“Uncle Eliot,” he heard Carl whisper, and he let his attention slide from Parker to his nephew. “Is Coal goin’ to be okay?” 

The answer was yes, and it was obvious; either Carl wanted Eliot’s attention, or he was just well practised at diffusing tension. With two older brothers, Eliot was leaning towards the latter. “Yeah buddy, Dr. Jimmy said he was going to be fine, didn’t he?” 

The veterinarian had just left, and they were lingering in the barn – Carl with the intention of fussing over the foal, and Parker with the intention of driving him crazy. 

“Come’n take a look?” 

Eliot made his way halfway into the stall – the Momma horse clocked him, but didn’t fret. Carl was crouched next to foal, caressing its long nose with the back of his hand. Coal’s eyes were open a sliver, and he was almost asleep. “Little guy looks pretty tired,” Eliot said softly, and Carl nodded, standing up. 

“We should leave.” 

Parker inched across the rafter above them, and a cat jumped down onto the braces of the stall, making the Momma horse’s ears twitch. 

“Com’on,” he said, pulling Carl back gently by the shoulder, and redirecting him out of the stall, “We can come back tomorrow. Close it up, and I’ll get Parker?” 

“Okay, Uncle Eliot.” 

At least one kid wasn’t giving him any trouble. When he looked up, Parker was threading a rope around a brace with a dangerously adventurous look on her face. “Parker,” he called up, and she predictably ignored him, tying a knot at the edge of the rope. 

Carl, sensing his frustration, chimed in, “Com’on, we’re back home.” 

“I’m coming down,” she told them impatiently, doubling back the rope and wrapping it around her waist, making something of a harness. 

Eliot folded his arms, refusing to let this one go. “Parker, you come down that way and we’re going to be having a long conversation you won’t enjoy.” 

She glared down at him, but she stopped. “But it’s safe,” she insisted, frustrated and annoyed, and Eliot shook his head, 

“No, it’s not. Now get down here before I come up and get you.” 

With a huff she pulled the rope off the brace, letting the end of it go so it dropped into a heap on the ground. Carl watched with wide eyes as she jumped from beam to beam, and then landed softly on the floor of the loft. “I’m down,” she grumbled, sliding down the ladder, and Eliot watched her, unimpressed. 

“You done?” he asked, and she sulked, stubbornly glaring at the floor. Eliot was ready to wait her out, but after a few moments, Carl said softly,

“We can go back now.” 

Parker didn’t leave – she was angry with him, but she was also worried about pushing him too far. She thought he was almost there, and she was going to tiptoe the line as close as she could for now. 

Carl looked between them, uneasy. With a sigh, Eliot stepped aside. “Go,” he said, and Parker glanced at him before slipping past, Carl following with relief. 

Eliot checked the latch of the stall door before leaving. When he got into the kitchen there was no sign of Parker or Carl, but Kay was stacking jars into the pantry. “They go upstairs?” he asked, and she nodded,

“Ran through here like cats outta hell. What happened?” 

“Parker,” he sighed, pulling a beer out of the fridge. “Trying to push my buttons. She’s angry with me.” 

Kay leaned past him, taking her own beer. “You blame her?” The lack of sympathy gave him pause, but no, he couldn’t really blame her. 

“No. Doesn’t keep me from being the bad guy though.” 

Kay leaned against his shoulder, and they sipped in unison. “Sometimes you gotta be a bad guy,” she commented lightly, and Eliot gave her a side-glance. 

Did she know? Parker wouldn’t have said anything, but it wasn’t exactly a fair stretch of the imagination. Whatever it was she thought he was doing, she must’ve known it wasn’t entirely legal. “Just wish Parker didn’t see it that way.” 

“She’ll understand one day.” 

And there was the sympathy – except Eliot seriously doubted that Parker would ever understand why the things she thought were safe, weren’t at all. “Maybe,” he muttered. 

“Can’t be much longer now, can it?” Kay asked quietly. She didn’t want him to leave, but she didn’t like seeing Parker missing home so badly either. And she wasn’t sure at what point no contact would be concerning. 

They would want to do the job fast and furious – they’d need at least a day to set a plan in motion. The gang would be expecting retaliation, so they’d have to sift through all the intel with a critical eye. But then again, Nate’s rage could expedite things considerably. “Four more days – if I don’t hear back in four days, I’m gonna go check on things.” 

“An’ Parker?” Kay asked. After a beat, Kay sighed: “An’ Parker could stay with us.” 

Eliot nodded; there was no way Kay wouldn’t watch Parker for a few days without him – not in good conscience.

“It’ll be alright,” Kay muttered, giving him a kiss on the cheek before pushing off the counter edge and returning to the pantry. 

 

Chapter 14

“Why’d you always do that?” 

Parker lifts her head from the floor, where she’s lying, confused. “Do what?” 

Carl frowns at her, stretched out across his brother’s bed on his stomach. “I dunno. I mean, sometimes you do stuff you’re not supposed to do. Even though you know you shouldn’t do it.” 

Like climbing the rafters in the barn – but that wasn’t something she shouldn’t have done, it was just something Eliot didn’t want her to do. “It wasn’t dangerous,” she mutters, lying back and looking up at the ceiling. 

“Yeah it was – you could’ve fallen.” 

“I don’t fall,” she tells him, and he should know that; they’ve climbed almost everything there was to climb around here. 

“So? One day you might. An’ Uncle Eliot didn’t want you to.” 

“I don’t care what Eliot wants,” she snaps, frustrated, “Eliot won’t let me do anything. No one will. I know how to do stuff. I can help. But no one wants me to.” Maybe that’s why Nate sent her away – so that she wouldn’t be in the way? That feels even worse than if it was because they wanted to keep her safe. 

Carl’s silent for a moment, and then he says, “I like your help.” 

But it isn’t Carl that she’s talking about, and it doesn’t make her feel much better. Carl doesn’t need her help – not like Nate might need her help. Parker closes her eyes, listening to Kay and Eliot walk around the kitchen, their footsteps dull and soft. 

“I’m bored,” Carl says quietly, and Parker opens an eye, 

“Okay.” 

Carl shifts off the bed, and Parker sits up on her elbows. “You wanna play a game?” he asks, standing up, and Parker shrugs, 

“What kind?” 

“Have you ever made a fort?” Carl asks, grabbing a spare blanket off the bed and grinning. 

\- 

The door of the room opens, and Parker pokes her head out of one of the blanket-roof openings – they realized pretty quick that it got really stuffy under all the blankets, and they needed some way to let the air get out. 

Kay’s standing in the door with wide eyes, her mouth open just a little – she’s not happy, not at all. Eliot’s standing behind her, holding back a smile, but Parker has the feeling that they’re about to get in trouble. 

“What in heaven’s name have you two been doin’?” Kay asks, her voice funny, and Carl pops up from another hole on the other side of the fort. 

Carl doesn’t look like he wants to answer, and he looks at Parker. “We made a fort,” she says after a second, because that’s what it is, and if they took all the pillows and blankets and sheets from around the house that they could find, well, that wasn’t a problem, was it? They would give them back… eventually. 

“Carl,” Kay says in the same disappointed voice Sophie talks to Parker sometimes, and Carl doesn’t look up, guilty.

“We were gonna clean it up, Ma,” he mutters, and his hand touches the edge of the blanket in front of him, his finger running along it. 

“We were playing,” Parker adds, glancing at Eliot, who was leaning against the door – wasn’t this an okay way to play? 

Kay shakes her head and comes forward a little bit. She looks at the two beds in the center that Parker and Carl pushed together, which were keeping the whole thing together. “An’ where exactly, are you gonna sleep tonight Carl? This is gonna take hours to clean up.” 

It feels like Carl is in more trouble than she is, which doesn’t make sense. “We could sleep in the fort,” she says, and Kay turns her disappointed look to her – it instantly makes Parker feel bad. 

“You wanna sleep in the fort?” she asks, and that is what Parker said, but it sounds silly coming from Kay. Parker looks at Eliot for help, and he looks at her for a second before sighing, stepping into the room. 

“Like a sleepover,” he says, crouching and ducking his head so he can look through the opening – there’re two camping mats on the ground in the middle, next to the beds, and a book, on top of a pile of blankets. Carl had been reading to her before the door opened. 

Kay doesn’t look happy that Eliot isn’t helping her, and she goes back to looking at Carl, who’s looking back, and trying to say something without saying it. “Tomorrow mornin’, you’re both cleaning this up after breakfast,” she tells him, and he nods quickly, smiling,

“’Course Ma.” 

“Then go get ready for bed,” she says, and Carl ducks under the blankets, crawling out and running to the bathroom. Kay leaves after him, and Parker makes her way out of the fort more slowly.

“A fort, Parker?” he asks, waiting for her, his eyebrow up, and Parker stays in the little hallway of blankets. 

“It was Carl’s idea,” she says softly. She was trying to make Eliot angry before in the barn, but this wasn’t the same thing. The fort wasn’t supposed to make anyone angry – it was just supposed to be fun. 

Eliot holds out his hand, and she looks at it for a second before taking it. He helps her up off the floor, and his hand squeezing her shoulder. “You going to be alright in here for the night?” he asks, and she wants to hug him. Instead, she nods, 

“Yeah.” 

“Then go get changed – I’ll be just across the hall if you need anything.” 

 

Chapter 15

It was 2:05 in the morning, and Eliot could hear Parker moving. He knew it was Parker because she was trying to sneak – the creak of the floor wasn’t jarring enough for it to be Kay, and it was too silent to be Carl. 

Eliot closed his eyes, listening to the scuffle of Parker’s weight as she crossed the room. She was moving toward the window – there was a pause, and then her pyjamas brushed against the worn paint of the windowsill. A soft thud and the scratch of her bare feet against the shingles, and then she was too far away to hear anymore.

Wondering where she was going, and what she was doing, Eliot slipped out of bed and made his way down the stairs quietly. The light over the oven was on, so he stayed in the shadows, old habits dying hard. 

The backdoor squeaked as he opened it, and he made a mental note to grease it for Kay before they left. The porch light was on, and he stilled, waiting for a noise that would indicate where Parker had gone. 

It didn’t take long for him to hear the sound of her climbing – the sound of her hands gripping holds in that precise pace and the soft grunt couldn’t be anything else. 

Parker was climbing up the tree beside the barn – but why? 

Leaving the porch, he moved across the dewed grass. There was no one in the tree when he got there, but there was an opening to the barn close to one of the branches. It seemed a long way to jump, but Eliot wasn’t surprised that Parker managed it. 

Still, he wasn’t sure what was in the barn that she had to go looking for in the middle of the night. Taking the path of least resistance, and giving her fair warning that he was coming, he went through a side door; the hinges popped and the bottom edge scraped along the floor. 

It was dark in the barn, and he gave himself a second to let his eyes adjust. It was silent, but Parker was here somewhere. His eyes adjusted so he could see the outlines of shapes, and he went forward, sidestepping the pillar in front of him. There was a sniff and he paused, tracing the direction of the sound – up and to the left. Parker was in the loft. 

Carefully, he made his way up the ladder. There was a little brighter in this part of the barn, the open windows letting in the glow of the moonlight. Parker was leaning back against a bale of hay, crouching, her arms hugging her knees, staring at something. 

“Hey-a Parker,” he said softly, coming closer, and her eyes didn’t move – from this angle, he could see that there was a gun on the hay bale across from her, a Smith and Wesson revolver, and she was watching intently. 

“Where’d you get that?” he asked gently, crouching down next to her. Parker jerked in surprise, falling over. “Hey, just me, darlin’,” he muttered, hating the fear in her eyes when she looked up at him. It passed quickly, and he sat down against the bale, helping her do the same. 

“Rogers keeps it locked up here, in a box,” she told him, her voice robotic and sunken. 

He put an arm around her, and she leaned into his side. “You’re not supposed to be picking locks out here,” he chided gently, more for the normalcy than anything. 

“I think Carl was mad at me today,” she said, and he nodded, waiting for more. “But he didn’t do anything about it.” 

“Some people don’t act on their anger.” 

“Like you.” 

It was far too quick an answer not to mean something. “Yeah?” he asked, prompting her to explain, and she pushed her head back against his shoulder. 

“I was trying to make you mad.” 

Eliot smiled, “I know.” 

“But you didn’t get mad.” 

He’d been close, but she wasn’t wrong. He could almost see where the conversation was going, but he didn’t think there was any way to redirect it. “No.” 

“Why?” she asked, confused and pleading – so many things in her life weren’t making sense right now, but this was one of them she could vocalize. 

“’Cause I’m here to protect you, whether you like it or not. And you’re not liking it, and that’s okay – it doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.” 

She curled into him a little, still watching the gun. “I’m not like other kids,” she told him in a whisper; she’d been thinking about it, and she said it with quiet resignation. “I like Carl. But I’m not like him.” 

It was the first time Eliot had heard Parker admitting to liking a kid around her age; Parker wasn’t a normal kid, not in any sense. He’d never compare her to any other kids, and he hadn’t been looking forward to the day when she was self-aware enough to do it herself. “Carl had a different life than you did – you’re not going to be like him. No one’s exactly like anyone else.” 

“Carl wouldn’t ever kill anything,” she told Eliot softly. 

“Right now?” He pulled her closer, wanting her to not feel alone. “No, I don’t think he would.” 

“I could kill someone.” It was a quiet statement, and Eliot caught the guttural twitch of his shoulder before she could feel it. “I could use a gun. If they were sleeping, I could use a knife.” 

“You wouldn’t kill someone,” Eliot told her, firm and confident – she might, one day, but she didn’t need to have that in her head right now. 

Parker shook her head, pulling away, “But I did.” There were tears in her eyes, a panic in her face, and he remembered the nightmares she still got sometimes, and realized that she’d lost someone when she was young, and she thought she’d killed them. “And I would again. I almost did when they took me. Eliot, before you guys got there – I, I almost did. And I would have. I would have done it.” 

“But you didn’t,” he said, pulling her back. He wanted to explain how much that mattered, how important the fact that she didn’t was, but he didn’t know how. 

“But I would have,” she insisted, and he shook his head, holding her firmly,

“But you didn’t.” 

“I would have,” she muttered, and he said, again, patiently, 

“You didn’t.”

“I would.”

“But you didn’t.” 

Parker jerked, pulling away, frantic, “I wanted to.” 

The admission hung in silence after the sudden outburst. Eliot felt the world slip a little– this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. This wasn’t the kind of life they wanted for Parker. Where she had that kind of option. Where she felt these things. 

Eliot exhaled, pulling her back, refusing to let her think he believed her. “But you didn’t,” he said firmly, his voice filled with conviction, “And that’s all that matters. You could have, you would have, you wanted to, but you didn’t. And whoever it was that you lost, that you watched die – you didn’t do that either. That wasn’t your fault. You didn’t do any of it.” 

Parker was shaking, crying, and he wondered if he’d gone too far. But the discussion seemed to be over, and when she finally fell asleep, he carried her back into the house. He wiggled under the fort with her, laying her on the mat that wasn’t occupying – Carl stirred, but didn’t wake, and after Eliot covered Parker with some blankets, he lay on his back beside them, closed his eyes, and waited for morning. 

 

Chapter 16

When Parker wakes up, her eyes are sore, but Carl’s yawning in the mat across from her, and Eliot’s watching them, his chin on his hands, waiting. The room is bright – there are no clouds in the sky, and when they go down to make breakfast, Carl won’t leave Eliot’s side. Which is fine, except that he keeps shifting from side to side, and looking at Parker every now and then. 

Finally, she asks what he wants, and Carl sys that Eliot promised to take them riding – and three hours later, after they’d cleaned up the blanket fort, she’s outside the barn, and Eliot’s holding the reins of a huge, giant horse. 

Carl's already on a horse, a big black one, and there's another horse tied to the fence for Eliot, all saddled up and restless. 

"It's just like being on a roof," Carl says, "Only, it moves." 

It doesn’t look much like a roof to her, but Eliot smiles, and tells her to at least come closer. 

The horse tilts its head down at her, and Parker comes a little closer; it looks bored, just standing there, and it turned its head to Eliot, nudging his arm. "I'll help you up," Eliot says, and he reaches down and picks her up; Parker puts her leg up so it doesn't smash into the horse, and then, suddenly, she's on top of it. The horse doesn't move at all, just stands there, and Eliot adjusts the holds where her feet go. 

"Hold on to the reins," he tells her, giving her the straps, "And you can grab onto the horn right there if it feels like you're unsteady. Other than that, give her a little nudge to get going, and she should just follow me and Carl." 

Eliot steps away and the horse stays still, and Parker shifts a little on the hard saddle. Carl's horse comes a little closer, and when she looks at him, he’s grinning. "Maggie's the best," he tells her, and somehow, he makes his horse do a fancy turn around, and he’s next to Parker. 

Carl's horse’s name is Lollipop, and Eliot's is Coda. Parker doesn’t think the names made any sense. 

Eliot's horse shifts as Eliot gets up on it, and he grabs the reins and steers it in a wide circle - eventually he comes up beside them, and he looks at Carl. "Lead the way," he says, and Carl grins, and he pokes his heel into the horse’s side, and they start moving. "Go ahead," Eliot tells her, and Parker taps her heel against Maggie's side, because that's what Carl did, and Maggie starts to move. 

It surprises her, but it doesn't take long to get used to – when she finally feels steady enough to glance behind her, Eliot's right there, and the house seems really far away. "Where are we going?" she shouts up at Carl; Eliot comes up next to her, and Carl's horse slows down too, until they're all in line. 

"Do you want to see the Rocky Lake, Uncle Eliot?" Carl asks, and Parker's heard him talk about it before, but he always said that it was too far away to go without someone to come with them. 

"'Course I do," Eliot smiles, "S'long as you're willing to take us, and it's not too far. Promised your Mom I'd have you home by dinner." 

Carl nods, seriously, and he nudges his horse, which trots ahead. "Feeling alright?" Eliot asks, and Maggie's goes a little faster, and Parker nods - it's not that bad, riding a horse. Only, it's more like being on top of a tree branch that moves, instead of a roof. "Want to go faster?" Eliot asks, and Parker looks up at Carl, who's a bit ahead of them now, and nods. "Just nudge her again," Eliot says, and he nudges Coda, and Coda starts going faster, and it feels like Maggie's just waiting for Parker to ask her to follow. So Parker nudges Maggie, and it takes a little longer to get used to the movement, but it's not new anymore, and Parker kind of likes it. 

Parker nudges Maggie again, and soon they catch up, and she wonders if Nate will let her have a horse. 

\- 

Rocky Lake is a small lake that has rocks around its edges. They aren’t sharp rocks - just big, flat boulders, one pressed up against the other; there’s a small little gravelly beach between two big rocks, and after Eliot ties the horses to a tree, they eat lunch there with their boots and socks off. 

There’s a couple trees growing in between the rocks; Carl takes Eliot to help him climb one of them, and Parker stays at the beach, soaking her feet. Eliot had told her not to get her clothes wet, but he didn’t say anything about putting her feet in the water. 

It’s cold, but it feels nice between her toes, and before long she’s at the very edge of the water, and climbing up a rock; it’s like bouldering at the climbing gym, and she makes it up without a problem. At the top there’s a puddle of water, and Parker sits down beside it – there’s rocks inside, and some shiny-looking things, and something that looks like a knife. 

Eliot and Carl are over on the other side of the lake. Carl’s laughing, and Eliot’s pushing him up onto a branch – Carl looks happy, and Eliot looks happy, and Parker thinks she won’t ever be like that, but maybe that’s okay. At least she knew she had a home to go back to, one where they don’t mind that she’s a little different. 

Parker glances down at the puddle again, wondering if Eliot’ll be mad if she takes the knife out – when she looks up again, Eliot’s pulling the phone out of his pocket. He looks at the screen with a frown, and then flips it open. Abandoning the puddle, Parker climbs down the boulder as quickly as she can, getting the bottom of her pants wet when she splashes down into the water. 

Carl’s watching Eliot from the branches, and Parker runs over to them. 

“We can be back in two days,” Eliot’s saying when she gets close enough to hear, and he looks at her with a smile. Then he frowns, annoyed, and glares at the phone, “No, Hardison, I can’t leave my truck out here… Then you should have called two days ago – damnit, Hardison, just put Nate on the phone.” 

Parker grabs Eliot’s arm, tugging on it, “I want to talk to Nate. Let me talk to Nate!” 

Eliot holds up a hand and she stops to wait her turn.

“Yeah, Parker’s fine,” Eliot says, and Parker’s chest feels warm, because that means Nate asked about her. “We’re down south, somewhere safe – wait, Carl, don’t – wait a second Nate.” Eliot notches the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he can reach up for Carl, who’s attempting to get down off the tree himself. 

“I want to talk to Nate,” Parker says again, because Eliot’s not talking to Nate right now, and someone should be. 

Eliot helps Carl land on the ground, and Carl leans back against the tree. He looks kind of sad, and Eliot takes a step back from both of them. “One second Parker,” he says, and he switches the phone to the other ear. “Is everything alright back there?” Eliot doesn’t talk for a moment, listening and nodding, and almost frowning. “Okay, that’s where we’ll head then. Get Hardison to text me the address. You sure you guys are alright?” 

The answer must be good, because Eliot says bye, and then hands the phone down to Parker. 

“Nate?” she asks instantly, and when he says hi, she can’t help but smile. Nate isn’t dead, or shot – he’s alive, and he’s okay, and he’s safe, and she doesn’t feel so worried anymore. 

“Are you having a good time with Eliot?” Nate asks, and the connection isn’t very clear, but it’s Nate, and he’s talking, and that’s enough for her. 

“Yeah,” she answers, because it hasn’t been that bad. “I’ve been playing with Carl, and his sister makes really good jam. She calls him Ely.” 

Eliot watches her while he talks to Carl, who still looks sad and won’t look at Eliot. “Eliot’s sister calls him Ely?” Nate asks, and Parker nods, 

“Yeah. Can we come back now?” That’s what it sounds like, but she wants to be sure. She wants to hear Nate say it. 

There’s a voice in the background, Sophie, maybe, and Nate says, “Yeah, you can come home now. Only, Parker, home’s not going to be Boston anymore. We’re going to meet you in New York, okay?” 

“Why?” She’d been living in New York when Nate found her – why were they going back there? 

There’s a pause, and it sounds like Nate’s covering the phone with his hand. Instead of Nate, Sophie comes on, and she says, “Hello love, having a good trip?” 

“Nate said I’m going back to New York,” she says, and Sophie makes a noise, a warm noise, and says, 

“Oh sweetie, not to worry, we’re all going there.” 

“But why?” 

“Just a change of scenery, a bit of something new. You’re going to love New York.” Sophie doesn’t sound like she really believes it herself, but Parker knows when she’s not going to get a proper answer. 

“Okay. Can I talk to Nate again?” 

“Of course – all my love Parker. Be good for Eliot, and we’ll see you soon.” 

There’s a pause as Sophie hands the phone to Nate. “Sorry about that Parker, I just got, ah, I had to step away for a second.” 

“That’s okay.” Eliot starts walking up the beach with Carl, and he motions for her to come with them. “We’re going back to the house now – but we’re riding horses. I don’t think I can be on the phone and ride a horse.” 

“You should probably hang up before you get up on that thing,” Nate says, and Parker decides that now isn’t a good time to ask if he’d let her have a horse. 

“Is Hardison okay?” she asks, and Eliot’s helping Carl up onto his horse, but she doesn’t want to hang up. 

Nate laughs, and it makes Parker smile. “Hardison’s just fine; he was just saying that he’d have to enlist you to help him set up all his tech when we get to New York.” Nate lowers his voice, almost whispering like he’s sharing a secret, “He’s not very happy about moving.” 

“Damn right I’m not!” she hears Hardison yell in the background, and Carl’s on his horse, and Eliot’s holding the reins of hers,

“Say bye to Nate, Parker. You’ll see him soon.” 

Parker frowns. “Eliot says I have to say bye,” she tells Nate, and Nate says, 

“Then it sounds like you need to go. I’ll see you in a bit, alright Parker?” 

“Okay. Bye Nate. I miss you.” 

“I’ve miss you too Parker. I love you. See you soon.” 

“Bye,” Parker mutters, pulling the phone away and hanging up. 

“Com’on,” Eliot says, taking the phone and slipping it into his pocket. “Up you go.” He lifts her up, and as he swings her around she takes the phone from his pocket and slips it into hers. Hardison called them, so that meant it was okay to call back now. 

 

Chapter 17

There was pathetically little to pack into the truck – Parker’s backpack, her rabbit, a sweatshirt for Eliot that belonged to John, the older boy, who ‘ain’t gonna wear it anyhow’. Carl was upset that they were leaving, and Eliot couldn’t blame the poor kid – he genuinely liked Carl, and he couldn’t deny he’d entertained the notion of coming back after he’d dropped off Parker. But he had obligations, and he’d be back here soon enough to visit. 

Kay was fussing over them, making snacks, and sandwiches, and bottles of juice, and stacking all the jam that was in the house into a cardboard box so they could take it with them. Despite all the grief that Parker had caused his sister, it was clear Kay had a soft spot for her. 

“Do you hafta go?” Carl asked, dejected, and Eliot crouched down so he could hug him properly. 

“I do,” he said, and Carl’s arms wrapped around him. “But I’ll be back in a few months, maybe, and we can go out riding, and you can show me how big that horse of yours has gotten, and we can go fishing, and maybe your Ma’ll even let us go camping for a few nights.” 

“Really?”

“Really,” Eliot promised, pulling away. “You’re a good kid Carl. Don’t let John and Matthew tell you any more nonsense about why I don’t visit. You call me whenever you need someone to talk to, all right?” 

“Okay Uncle Eliot,” Carl said, and this time Eliot got a smile, and he stood up, patting Carl’s shoulder. 

Parker was lingering around the truck; she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, but thankfully, Carl and Kay followed Eliot as he walked over to her. “You got everything?” he asked her, and she nodded, glancing at Carl. “Make sure you say goodbye,” he said, leaving her to start the car. 

“You’re always welcome here, Parker,” Kay said, bending down so that she could give Parker a hug – it took Parker a second, but she eventually lifted an arm to half-hug Kay back. “Be good for Eliot, you hear?” 

“Everyone says that,” Parker muttered, and Kay laughed, and Parker looked confused, and then Carl was hugging her too. 

“Bye Parker,” he said, and it took Parker a few seconds, but eventually she was hugging Carl back. “Thanks for bringin’ Uncle Eliot here. I’m gonna miss you. It was a lot of fun havin’ you here.” 

He let go and Parker nodded. “I had fun too,” she finally said, and Eliot called her over so that she wouldn’t have to stand there any longer. 

Carl and Kay waved them out of the driveway, and Eliot tuned the radio and convinced Parker that yes, seatbelts were annoying, and yes, she still needed to wear one. Stubborn, she curled up against the seat belt as best she could, using the rabbit as a pillow against the window. 

They were on the highway when she asked, “How far away is New York?” 

“At least another day of driving, darlin’.” 

Parker’s face fell, and she looked down at the dashboard, “Oh.” 

“We’ll be there soon,” he reassured, and he flicked on the headlights; Parker fell asleep two hours later, and with the sun setting behind them, he figured he could drive through the night and be home even earlier.

**Author's Note:**

> The book in question is: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. You can watch the animated version of the book on YouTube, if you don't know it.


End file.
